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EIGHT YEARS 


Among the Malays 


By /PAUL DACHSEL. 

A n 


WITH 55 ILLUSTRATIONS. 


1899 . 

Paul Dachsel, Publisher, 
Milwaukee, Wis. 







FIRST COPY, 

1889 




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1899, 
by Paul Dachsel, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C, 

[All rights reserved.] 

t'WOOOFIFa RECEIVED, 




J, H. Yewdale & Sons Co., Printers, 
M ilwaukee, Wis. 







PREFACE. 


The following chapters were composed almost exclusively from 
an oral account of his adventures in the Far East by a former mem¬ 
ber of the Dutch Colonial Army. At his special request and 
against my own wishes a mention of his name in connection with 
this work is suppressed. 

This book is a history, not fiction. It was written in the sum¬ 
mer of 1897, when none except perhaps some far-seeing statesman 
even dreamed that the United States would ever acquire territory 
in fhe East Indies. As these Reminiscences are neither a com¬ 
pendium of dry scientific facts, nor a rehash of what has been 
printed elsewhere, but a faithful account of those scenes and oc¬ 
currences which made the most lasting impression on a man who 
spent the best years of his life in the wilds of Sumatra among 
Malay tribes similar to those now in insurrection against the 
United States government on the Philippine Islands, it may noit 
he presuming too much to assert that they will prove interesting 
reading to the American people. 


Milwaukee, Wis., July 12, 1899. 


PAUL DACHSEL. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The Island of Sumatra covers an area of 17*0,744 square miles, 
which is larger than that of the State of California and a trifle 
less than that of the United Kingdom, Portugal and Switzerland 
combined. The native population is about four millions and com¬ 
prises the Malays proper, who inhabit the southern portion of the 
island, the Achinese, the Mohammedan and the Cannibal Battahs. 
The piratical exploits of the Achinese are a matter of history and 
have been effectually terminated on the high seas by Dutch cruisers, 
without, however, altogether preventing surreptitious attacks from 
the land on unprotected vessels stranded among the cliffs or load¬ 
ing cargoes of black pepper along the coast. The Cannibal Battahs, 
whose religious tenets are extremely vague and most probably cor¬ 
rupted remnants of the Buddhistic faith once prevalent on Suma¬ 
tra, infest the shores of Lake Tobah and to this day make the large 
island of Ambarita, which divides that romantic body of water 
into two unequal halves, the scene of their orgies, in which their 
unhappy victims, whether prisoners of war, condemned criminals, 
captive travellers or strangers, behold themselves tied to the stake, 
hacked to pieces inch by inch and literally eaten alive by the 
savages. The Mohammedan Battahs, who inhabit a large tract 
of land extending nearly from the west to the east coast of Sumatra 
and from the provinces of Acln and Deli on the north to those 
of Asahan and Simpanuli on the east and south, have been weaned 
from their cannibalistic propensities and have assumed the peaceful 
qualities of the Malays proper. 

In order to hold in check the warlike, liberty-loving and fanati¬ 
cal Achinese and compel them to pay tribute, the Dutch have es¬ 
tablished during the past two decades chains of military posts 
throughout the northern portion of Sumatra, which, however, have 
not ^prevented the natives from frequently attacking the convoys 
supplying the various forts with munitions and provisions. Skir¬ 
mishes between the Dutch and the Achinese are still a matter of 
daily occurrence, although a notice of them rarely finds its way 
into the newspapers. 

The Dutch Colonial Government, for reasons of its own, has 
apparently attempted to cast a veil of secrecy over its operations in 
that portion of Sumatra where it has not yet wholly succeeded in 
subjugating the natives. This may account for the fact that there 
is not one satisfactory map of Northern Sumatra accessible to the 
public. An Austrian traveller, Freiherr von Brenner, who crossed 
the Battah lands in 1887 and, in 1894, published an interesting 
account of his adventures with the cannibals, frequently mentions 


INTRODUCTION. 


Fort Laguboti, which is situated on the southern shore of Lake 
To bah, but his map of the lake and its environment does not show 
either that or any other military post. 

The Dutch land forces in the East Indies consist of eighteen bat¬ 
talions, or about ten thousand white and twenty - thousand native 
soldiers. The latter are recruited from among the Javanese, Am- 
boinese and the half-breeds of the white, brown, black and yellow 
races.. This small military force holds in check a population of 
more than thirty millions, but its task is facilitated by the dissen¬ 
sions of the native tribes among each other. 

The twenty-five millions of Javanese are undoubtedly the most 
oppressed nation in the Indian Archipelago. Although intelligent 
and peaceful*, they are rigidly excluded from all the advantages of 
civilization and kept in a condition of semi-slavery by the Dutch. 
Their education is limited to the meagre information imparted to 
them by the hadjis, or Mohammedan priests. They are not allowed 
to wear European clothes or even shoes. They are compelled to 
deliver at the government’s warehouses at prices fixed by the latter 
all the coffee, rice and indigo produced by them, to build roads and 
to do guard duty- in the villages at night without recompense. 
After dark the natives are not allowed to walk without a lantern or 
torch. They are compelled to pay an annual tax of about ten cents 
for every cocoanut-tree, whether bearing fruit or not. For a mere 
pittance the villagers are required to carry the luggage of soldiers 
or of travellers from station te station. Their only privilege is that 
of cutting the rice on the plantations, for which labor they receive 
every seventh bundle. 

After England in 1824 ceded back to Holland the latter’s East 
Indian possessions, which had been taken from the Dutch during 
the Napoleonic wars, Holland concluded a treaty with China, 
which recognized the former as the most favored nation and in 
return allowed the Chinese coolies and traders free ingress into 
the Dutch possessions. The advent of the Chinese proved disas¬ 
trous to the Javanese as w'ell as to the kindred Malay tribes, because 
the latter were soon inveigled into the general use of opium. The 
Dutch have licensed the infamous traffic in the drug, the corrupt¬ 
ing influences of wdiich are everywhere plainly visible, by selling 
to unscrupulous Chinese merchants the monopoly of vending that 
article upon payment of an annual tax of one million guilders for 
each district. Their infatuation for opium has made the Javanese 
the serfs of the Chinese as w^ell as of the Dutch. The Malays 
proper of Sumatra have shown themselves less tractable to the 
seductive arts of the opium venders and have preserved a more 
independent spirit. The use of narcotics is calculated to heighten 
the religious fanaticism of the natives and may some day prove 
a source of danger to their foreign masters. Of late years, insurrec¬ 
tions, of which no report was permitted to leave the country, have 


INTRODUCTION. 


occurred even among the peaceful Javanese in the District of Ban¬ 
tam. These outbreaks are directly traceable to the use of opium 
and to the oppressions of the Chinese, who have become the virtual 
lords of the soil of Java, The pilgrimages to Mecca of all the 
Mohammedan Malays and Javanese who can afford to make the 
trip, are not conductive toward increasing their love either for the 
Dutch or for the Chinese. 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction. 

Chapter I. From Batavia to Padang-Laut. 9 

Chapter II. Si-Wardi. 17 

Chapter III. v A Variegated Convoy. 24 

Chapter IV. A Javanese Mother-in-Law. 30 

Chapter V. An Amboinese Othello. 37 

Chapter VI. Fort de Kock. 42 

Chapter VII. The Titipapan Estate. 50 

Chapter VIII. History of the Sumatra Wrapper. 55 

Chapter IX. Through Rembu and Alang-alang. 60 

Chapter X. A Military Chess-board. 66 

Chapter XI. Sergeant Slonderwacht’s Danger. 72 

Chapter XII. The Battah Cannibals. 78 

Chapter XIII. The King’s Birthday. 83 

Chapter XIV. Cross, Crescent, Cannibalism and Can¬ 
ister . 89 

Chapter XV. Brullier’s Desertion. 95 

Chapter XVI. Tanku Abu’s Last Charge. 101 

Chapter XVII. Saridin, a Javanese Lieutenant. 106 

1. A Son of the Dessa. 106 

2. Among the Mercenaries. 110 

3. Sarina.*. 112 

4. Brown and Black. 114 

5. The Mutiny. 118 

6. Disenchantment. 120 

























St*, m- y m- "V tK'- v - 


\ 


t 








i 


CHAPTEK 1. 


FROM BATAVIA TO PADANG-LAUT. 

N an April morning in the year 1884, the day of the 
departure of. the big transport Soorakarta for the 
ports of Sumatra, there was considerable bustle on 
the Groote Boom, as the military dock in the 
roadstead of Batavia is called. The warfare 
against the ‘ piratical Achinese and the cannibal 
Battahs was at its height, and the Soorakarta was 
destined to convey munition and reinforcements to the Dutch 
colonial troops in the hostile regions. Black clouds of smoke 
issued from the funnels of the steamer, which were painted blue, 
white and red, the national colors of Holland. A small army of 
coolies in charge of the boatswain were loading the vessel with the 
latest consignments of freight and supplies and filling the air with 
the sound of monotonous Malay and Javanese ditties. 

The broad granite dock was the rendezvous of a motley crowd 
of soldiers guarding the approaches, of Javanese and Chinese huck¬ 
sters, government officials, friends and relatives of the departing 
warriors, and the usual quota of idle spectators, male and female, 
who, like minute-men in turbulent times, put in an early appear¬ 
ance on all occasions which rise a trifle above the routine course of 
events. 

The enterprising Chinese peddlers, dressed in white blouses and 
trousers, wore beaked felt shoes or leather sandals on their feet, 
and yellow straw hats almost as large as a parasol on their heads. 
Their stock in trade was contained in covered baskets suspended 
from bamboo poles resting horizontally on their shoulders. For 
the purpose of attracting the attention of purchasers to their frip¬ 
pery, they produced a noise resembling the clatter of castanets 
by means of rattles consisting of leaden balls in wooden cases. 
The warongs, or eating-booths, directly opposite the dock, were 
managed chiefly by Javanese and afforded the travelers a last 
opportunity to regale themselves with, native delicacies. Tobacco, 
clothing and jewelry were also sold in those establishments, tOs 
w r hich many a soldier, European as well as native, who had sup¬ 
plied himself shortly before the hour of embarkation with a dusky 
maid to comfort him in the midst of fatigues inseparable from a 
campaign in savage lands, turned his steps to purchase a pretty 
sarong, a silver girdle or some trinket to gladden the eye, and 
awaken devotion to him in the heart, of his new companion. The 
venders of cooling drinks, such as ice-water, lemonade and palm- 

(e) 



10 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


wine, had little occasion to put their lungs to any great test, for 
the sun was rapidly nearing the zenith and admonished all in his 
quiet but powerful way to counteract the effects of his rays by a 
liberal absorption of liquids. 



A battalion of infantry, which had been sent from Weltevreden 
in advance of the embarking troops, formed a cordon about the 
railway terminus, while its band took position on the platform. 
The cordon is forfned as a matter of precaution, to prevent deser¬ 
tions, especially of those soldiers, who, on account of minor of¬ 
fences against discipline, have been relegated to the second-class 
and are distinguished by the mark “No. 2 ” on their caps, and of the 
orang-rante, or “chain-boys,” who, for violations of the criminal 
code, have been sentenced to deportation to Sumatra. The chain- 
boys are recruited mainly from the Javanese, the white convicts 
being confined in the penitentiary at Pondjul, Java. They are 
employed in carrying the dead and wounded out of the fire, in 
cutting grass for the horses of the cavalry; in sweeping the bar¬ 
racks, and for other menial tasks about the military camps. 

When the shrill whistle of the locomotive announced the ap¬ 
proach of the long special train from Weltevreden, the principal 
military depot of the Dutch in the East Indies, the band struck up 
the King William march and the soldiers and their female house¬ 
keepers soon emerged from the cars and fell into line before the 
moorings of the Soorakarta. The major in charge of the transfer 
of troops at the Groote Boom was an imposing personage, whose 
brilliant uniform was adorned by the King William’s decoration of 
the third-class. He made brief, set speeches to the departing troops 
in the Dutch, Malay and Javanese tongues, calling their attention 








FROM BATAVIA TO PADANG-LAUT. 


11 


to the importance of their mission. While he was attempting to 
inspire the mercenaries with heroic aspirations, their coffee-hued 
female companions appeared entirely oblivious of the serious import 
of his words and kept up their babbling and giggling until the com¬ 
mandant’s temper was carried away by indignation at the lack of 
respect shown his exalted station and he roared at them in a gin- 
soaked voice: “Diam lue! jangan gongon key and jmg!” “Silence, 
rabble! don’t bark like dogs!” This emphatic apostrophe produced 
the desired quiet, but also wry faces among the Amboinese who are 
very fond of canine roasts. 

The major was not much liked by the soldiers who were ac¬ 
quainted with the manner in which he came to his blue-enameled 
decoration in the shape of a cross. While stationed at Samarang 
on Java, he was captain of a company composed chiefly of Swiss, 
Belgians and Frenchmen, who had formerly served in the Pope’s* 
guard and under Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. The tempting 
promises of Dutch recruiting officers induced them to enlist for 
the East Indian service. After their arrival on Java they found 
themselves disappointed—the common experience of Europeans in 
those quarters. They conspired to seize the armory at Samarang, 
but their plans were betrayed at the last moment and they were 
surrounded by native soldiers, put in irons, tried by a court martial 
and hung “as a warning example.” The captain was decorated and 
promoted to command at the Gfroote Boom in Batavia. 

At the close of the major’s harangues, the sergeant-major called 
the roll of the European and Sin jo, or half-breed, soldiers, who 
went aboard one by one with their brown ladies and their children. 
Having the first choice of quarters, they selected the best places on 
the upper deck. When some of the women appeared on the gang¬ 
way, with parrots on their shoulders and leading dogs by a. string, 
the captain of the vessel refused to transport the pets and got into 
a mock altercation with the major, which ended in Poll and Sport 
being returned to the barracks at Weltevreden. 

The whites and sinjos were followed by the “dog-eaters” from 
the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, who were known in the camps under 
the generic title of Amboinese. The Amboinese women are noted 
for their intelligence and good looks. Contrary to the existing 
law, some of them had arrayed themselves in neat white jackets, 
gilded slippers, silk stockings and other attractive feminine para-, 
phemalia, which aroused the envy of the njonjas, who were the 
wives pro tempore of the officers during their stay in those climes 
and had some Caucasian blood in their veins. The njonjas possess 
the right to dress like their white sisters—which is denied to all 
women of pure Malay extraction in the Dutch East Indies, except 
on the Moluccas, where an exception is made on account of the 
early Christianization of the natives. This privilege of the Molucca 


12 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 



women, however, is held in abeyance by the government during 
their sojourn in other portions of the em- 
pire for reasons of economy as well as 
policy. On account of the additional ex¬ 
pense entailed by the transportation of the 
women from the distant Moluccas, the gov¬ 
ernment prefers to see the recruits from 
those islands selecting their female com¬ 
panions on Java. Besides, it dreads that a 
too glaring manifestation of the discrim¬ 
inations made between the various Malay 
nationalities under its sway might lead to 
serious difficulties. The njonjas, accord¬ 
ingly, appealed to the shout, or captain 
of the harbor police, and requested that 
dignitary to see to it that their handsome 
sisters from the Spice Islands at once 
doffed their tropical imitations of Europe¬ 
an garments and contented themselves 
with the modest attire prescribed for the 
natives. The shout immediately ordered two of his native prad- 
jurets, whom the soldiers jestingly nicknamed “lemon-birds,” on 
account of their blue, swallow-tailed coats with wide yellow bor¬ 
ders, to remove the offensive decorations from the Molucca women. 
This was accomplished with neatness and dispatch, to the intense 
satisfaction of the njonjas and the Javanese women. The poor 
creatures, who were thus rudely reminded of the tyranny of Dutch 
rule, cried and howled at being robbed (their robes were confiscated) 
of their finery, and their male companions cursed and protested. 
All remonstrances were in vain, however, and some of the men who 
were loudest in their declamations were confined in the dark guard- 
room in the between-decks of the Soorakarta. 

Half a company of coal black negroes and sparo-sparos, or mu- 
lattoes of African and Malay extraction, and their woolly-haired 
mates, called lip-laps or hitam-manis (the latter a jocular appella¬ 
tion meaning “the sweet blacks”), were the nextio board the ship. 
The negroes, or Black Dutchmen, as the Javanese call them, are 
allowed full European rations, a liberal consumption of victuals 
being one of their dominant traits. The Amboinese are allowed 
to commute their rations and to adorn their quarters with all kinds 
of gaudy frippery, their tastes being more refined than those of the 
other Malays and of the negroes. The Javanese, contingent was the 
last to embark and had to be content with the dirtiest and hottest 
places near the engine-room. The Javanese soldiers receive the 
poorest pay and treatment of all. Their rations are only about one- 
half of those of the others. They are not even permitted to wear 
shoes, although such would be a great protection to their feet in 






FROM BATAVIA TO PADANG-LAUT. 


13 


forcing their way through the thorn-encompassed kampongs of the 
Achinese and Battahs. 

The hadjis, or Mohammedan priests,—the word includes all who 
have made the pilgrimage to Mecca,—bestowed their final blessings 
upon the departing Javanese soldiers, but entirely disregarded the 
females about to share the same hardships and dangers. The officers 
of the Eleventh battalion shook hands with their departing col¬ 
leagues, the ship’s cables were hauled in, the whistles blew, a gun 
was fired, the band played a farewell march and the Soorakarta 
steamed slowly through the roadstead. When she passed the guard- 
ship, the sailors on the latter climbed into the rigging and bade her 
a Godspeed with three loud hurrahs. 

While the Soorakarta was ploughing her way through the forest 
of masts floating the flags of all nations in the harbor of Batavia, 
her human cargo filled the decks and 
waved a farewell in thought to the Pearl 
of the Indiaifl Archipelago. The Euro¬ 
peans, who had recently come to these 
shores, meditated on their uncertain fate 
in almost unknown regions, while the na¬ 
tives, who were careless and of an easy¬ 
going disposition, recalled their pleasant 
life in their native kampongs and espe¬ 
cially their removal from the garrison of 
Weltevreden to the scene of combat with 
pirates and cannibals. On Java, recruits 
as well as veterans are permitted to spend 
their leisure time with their families in 
bamboo huts of their own in the vicinity 
of the barracks. 

An awning spread over the hurricane 
deck to ward off occasional light showers 
and the blistering rays of the sun cast jts 
beneficent shade over a medley of nations, 
including representatives of nearly all 
European countries and even a few American citizens, whose eyes 
clung to the last to the star-spangled banner waving proudly over 
the American consulate in Batavia, one of the most imposing 
structures in that city. 

As soon as the Soorakarta was outside of the roadstead of Batavia 
and hurrying towards the Strait of Sunda, the soldiers and the wom¬ 
en bestowed all their efforts urpon making themselves comfortable 
in the various portions of the decks. The Javanese at once gave 
themselves up to playing dadoo, a game of dice, to which they are 
passionately devoted. On the main hatch, in the middle of the boat, 
Kromo Wonzo, a short and thickset Javanese private, and his wife 
Sarintin, both dressed in their best attire, were squatted Javanese 


/ 




14 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


fashion, their lower extremities forming zigzags. Before them 
was spread out a large yellow reed mat divided by black lines into 
six equal squares, each of which was marked by a number. The 
six-cornered die, which is generally of hone, but occasionally of 
wood or silver, is pierced by a short piece of bamboo projecting 
about half an inch out of two opposite sides of the die. The 
tookan-dadoo, or proprietor of the gambling outfit, takes hold of the 
die at one of its projections, twirls it rapidly between his thumb 
and first finger and deposits it on a porcelain plate which is then 
immediate^ covered with a cocoanut shell. The participants in the 
game bet on either “high” or “low,” the former being represented 
on the fields of the mat by figures four, five and six and the latter 
by one, two and three. Kromo Wonzo hailed from Cheribon, which 
is situated between Samarang and Batavia on the northern coast of 
Java. He had served twelve years in the army and wore on his 
coat a number of decorations for good behavior and valiant con¬ 
duct. His wife was attired in a flowered sarong, a sea-green jacket 
and a silk slendang with gold embroidery. 
Her fingers and ears displayed a profusion 
of diamonds, which are preserved as heir¬ 
looms in native families. Her lower lip 
protruded to a considerable extent in con¬ 
sequence of the enormous quid of betel in 
her mouth. She acted as her husband’s < 
cashier. Kromo, a big tom cat, who was 
supposed to bring them luck and had been 
smuggled aboard in her slendang by Sar- 
intin, • sat between the couple and was oc¬ 
casionally petted bv his mistress to cajole 
him into exerting his good will in behalf 
of them. In order to indicate that the 
game was by no means limited to small 
sums, Ivromo Wonzo had piled up before 
him hundreds of silver guilders, a lot of 
bank notes and a ponderous mass of copper coins. Many of his 
countrymen were soon gathered about Kromo Wonzo’s gambling 
institution and displayed intense interest in the vicissitudes at¬ 
tending the throws of the die. 

The Europeans formed small groups on the decks and whiled* 
away the tin>e at cards. The officers occupied reclining chairs and 
chatted with their njonjas, or drank champagne or gin, according 
to the ebb or tide in their exchequer. Here and there a stoicM 
Chinaman, smoking his opium pipe, gazed with serene apathy upon 
the scene. The Javanese, who have an innate love for bathing, 
did not wish to deprive themselves of one of their principal pleas¬ 
ures and incessantly poured over their heads buckets full of sea 
water. This diversion thoroughly soaked the parcels of one of 



FROM BATAVIA TO PADANG-LAUT. 


15 


the Celestials and compelled him, since his remonstrances were in 
vain, to remove himself and his belongings to another quarter 
of the vessel. 

A score or two of Germans, some of whom were endowed with 
fair voices and would occasionally improvise a chorus^, amused 
themselves with singing their favorite songs, not alone for their 
own delectation, but also to enlist the attention of their officers 
who would reward their vocal exhibitions with an extra bottle of gin 
whenever they concluded a'medley of secular and sacred airs with 
satyrical couplets poking fun at John Bull, the nearest neighbor of 
the Dutch in the Far East. 

At five o'clock the bugler sounded the orlam, or the signal for 
the distribution of the evening grog. The European and African 
soldiers fell into line and each of them received a small tin cup full 
of gin. Immediately thereafter all the men passed through the 
kitchen to get their supper, which they took with them in their can¬ 
teens. While the roll was being called, the Malays received boiled rice 
and tea and the whites and negroes tea and biscuits. A ripple of 
laughter was caused, when the names of a burly Dutchman and of 
a tall, thin Swiss were called. The former responded to the ap¬ 
pellation of Mynheer Esshuis (Mr. Eathouse) and the latter to that 
of Gibli Saufhaus (Kid Drinkhouse). The men shared their 
victuals with their female companions on the decks and the feast 
resembled to some extent a picnic party, for the women had taken 
with them baskets containing delicious fruits, boiled eggs and other 
toothsome morsels not included in the regulation bill of fare. It 
was a genuine treat to all, because mosquitoes and other tormentors 
of the land were absent and a refreshing sea breeze greatly in¬ 
creased their appetites. Yet it were a mistake to suppose that a 
supper even under such auspicious circumstances, on a perfectly 
calm sea swallowing the fiery disk of the sun, who faintly illu¬ 
minated the distant shore mountains of the southern extremity 
of Sumatra, and in an aromatic and inspiring atmosphere, went 
off as smoothly as the evening prayers of the half dozen hadjis on 
board, who were returning from their pilgrimage to Mecca and 
bowed their green-turbaned heads reverentially towards the Moslem 
shrine in the west. When the white soldiers squatted on the decks 
by the side of their dusky sirens, the latter perceived the pene¬ 
trating odor of genuine Schiedam gin emanating from the throats 
of the warriors and at once inaugurated a series of curtain lectures, 
in which emphatic nouns and adjectives were by no means sparingly 
employed. Some of the men hastily swallowed a mouthful and 
gathered about a companion who worked a huge harmonica with all 
his might to drown the eloquence of the scolds. 

The last rays of the setting sun colored the surface of the deep 
with an indescribable variety of tints. The intense blue of the sky 
rapidly assumed a darker tinge. The sun sank beneath the horizon 


16 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


and in a few moments the stars appeared. It was night. The 
Southern Cross, the brightest constellation visible in that portion 
of the globe, for a time became the cynosure of many eyes. Al¬ 
though no tattoo was sounded on the transport, yet comparative 
quiet reigned soon after darkness had set in. The officers retired 
to their cabins and the others sought repose on their mats, covering 
themselves with light cotton sheets. Shortly before sunrise all 
were awakened, and rolled up their bedding to make way for the 
boatswain and his helpers who washed the decks with a hose. 

The rising sun displayed the magnificent view of the Strait of 
Sunda, which separates the swampy lowlands of Bantam on Java 
from the rocky wilderness of Lampong on Sumatra. The remnant 
of the Island of Krakatau, which was destroyed by a volcanic sub¬ 
marine convulsion on the twenty-seventh day of August, 1883, 
appeared on the starboard side of the vessel. Before the catas¬ 
trophe the island formed the pedestal of a large volcano which 
occasionally emitted smoke as if to warn all living things near it of 
the fiery terrors lurking beneath its lofty dome. On the morning 
of the fatal day volcanic eruptions and earthquake shocks were 
noticed from the Java shore, lava dust and darkness filled the air 
for many miles in the vicinity and lamps had to be lit in the 
houses of Batavia at noon. With a noise comparable only to the 
crash of doom, the volcano of Krakatau sank beneath the waves of 
the strait and caused a flood which buried more than 100,000 
people in its embrace. The Island of Krakatau, was formerly a 
stronghold of Malay pirates, but European gunboats have long since 
put an end to their molestations. The Strait of Sunda, was an 
ideal place for pirates, because many vessels were constantly pass¬ 
ing through it and frequently detained for a long period by head 
winds. At the time of the disaster, the inhabitants of the island 
were peaceful, devoting themselves to fishing and to the cultivation 
of spices. Not one of their number escaped death. When the 
Soorakarta passed the dark, forbidding lava rocks, mgny vestiges of 
the,cataclysm were still seen clinging to them. 

At night a brief stop was made at Bencoolen, one of the many 
safe and land-locked harbors on the western coast of Sumatra. zV 
few passengers and a detachment of soldiers disembarked and a 
score of invalids were taken aboard for conveyance to the health 
resorts in the highlands of Padang. The Soorakarta then con¬ 
tinued her voyage to Padang-Laut, or Padang by-the-Sea, without 
any other incident during the night than the death of a Javanese 
soldier, who was sleeping 
next to one of the guns on 
the upper deck and at¬ 
tracted no attention until 
he failed to get up after 
the gum was fired at sun¬ 
rise. 





CHAPTER II. 


SI-WARDI. 

EN the sun rose above the G-leh-Eajah, the 
“Mountains Royal,” which run through the entire 
length of Sumatra and fall off in terraces to the 
sea on the west and to the swamps on the east, the 
Soorakarta cast anchor close to a wooded island 
guarding the entrance to a shallow cove, at the 
head of which the city of Padang-Laut lies in a 
depression of the shore-line snug and safe like a 
dog at the feet of its master. Viewed from the 
ocean, the entire western, coast of Sumatra pre¬ 
sents the aspect of an irregular mountain chain 
rising abruptly out of the sea and adorned to the very tops of its 
noblest peaks w T ith the dense vegetation of untrodden virgin forests. 
The summits of Jongolo and Merapi, the former an extinct and the 
latter an active volcano, are visible in the clear atmosphere at a 
great distance to the north. Thin clouds of smoke, which have a 
fiery tinge at night, are uninterruptedly issuing from the bowels 
of Merapi. According to a native legend, the two wooded mountain 
giants dueled a long time for the hegemony until finally Merapi 
vanquished Jongolo, who thenceforth ceased to betray signs of life. 

While the Soorakarta was waiting for the tugs and lighters to 
take ashore the troops and freight, the men were given permission 
to disport themselves for an hour or two on the island,—an oppor¬ 
tunity seized with eagerness especially by the Javanese .who were 
pining away to rid themselves of the soot and grease of their 
quarters near the engine room by plunging into the calm blue 
waters laving the sandy beach of the island. The latter resembled 
a sea-enclosed, well-kept park, for the luxuriant tropical under¬ 
growth had been carefully pruned by the hand of man and inter¬ 
sected by gravel walks. 

The men, especially the natives, hugely enjoyed the refreshing 
frolic in the briny shallows. Soon afterward the greater portion of 
the ship’s population was landed at the piers of Padang-Laut, after 
an enjoyable ride on the placid bosom of an inlet flanked on either 
side by precipitous cliffs higher than the loftiest dome. Shortly 
before rounding a promontory, which prevented a view of the city 
from the sea. Monkey Island was passed. The latter is a small 
patch of land rising but a little above tide-water and peopled ex¬ 
clusively by monkeys which are held sacred by the Malays and are 

(17) 



18 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 

protected by the government. A white soldier, who threw a stone 
at one of the animals while the troops were going ashore, was 
rebuked by a Javanese private, a disciple of Darwin without 
knowing it, who said to him: “Yangan boeang sama ito moenjet, 
sabobnja dia yedi orang yuka,” a Do not throw at that monkey, 
because he is a man too.” 

The newly arrived troops were received at the landing-place by 
the garrison band anct conducted to the 
barracks, which were located several miles' 
beyond the town on a flat expanse of 
ground traversed by a stream descending 
from the mountains. Before reaching the 
sea the stream is drawn off into numerous 
small channels irrigating the rice-fields in 
the vicinity. 

The military camp of Padang-Laut con¬ 
sists of twelve large, airy, one-story brick 
buildings, which are surrounded by a stone 
wall. Each building contains two hundred 
iron bedsteads, arranged in two rows, for 
the accommodation of as many soldiers and 
their female companions. Their children, 
if any they had, were tucked away under 
the couches of the parents. Each bedstead 
was supplied with a mattress and a pillow, 
both filled with rice-straw, and with a reed 
mat and a cotton quilt. The non-commissioned officers occupied 
separate apartments next to those of the men. The cooking was 
done in an airy shed chiefly by the women on grates consisting of 
four flat stones. On account of the liability to incur fever from the 
drinking of large quantities of water in that hot country, warm tea 
and coffee in big wooden tubs are always at the disposal o>f the 
men as a substitute. A dozen bath houses, built directly over the 
stream, were always well patronized, for under the equator a plunge 
into running water is a great luxury. Soldiers leaving or entering 
the barracks were searched at the guard-house, which commanded 
the only entrance to the camp. The washing was done by the 
women on the banks of the stream in the fashion of the natives. 
The wash is thoroughly soaked and scrubbed with soap in the 
stream and then beaten against a layer of stones. This operation 
causes many a shining button to desert its uniform. 

The finest avenue of Padang-Laut extends from the piers to the 
barracks and is lined with a fine assortment of palms, tamarinds 
and other shade trees, which rear their crests above the homes of 
the Dutch civil and military officers, of the foreign consuls, the 
merchants and brokers, and some planters from the famous tobacco 
district of Deli. The residences along the avenue are built in the 




SI-WARDI. 


19 



native style and surrounded by beautiful gardens displaying the 
choicest florail products of tropical climes. 

The city of Padang-Laut presents the usual aspect of a small sea¬ 
port in the Dutch East Indies. The 
buildings, whether of white stone or red 
brick or bamboo, are almost without ex¬ 
ception one story in height. Some of the 
streets are straight and some irregular and 
all are unpaved. The business population 
is composed mainly of Dutch exporters 
and Malay and Chinese shopkeepers. The 
inlet is alive with small and large fishing 
boats, sampans and prauws, manned by 
Malays. The chief center of activity is the 
passar, or bazaar, which is crowded from 
morning until midnight with a noisy, hag¬ 
gling crowd of natives of both sexes and of 
sailors and civilians of nearly all nations 
and of all shades of complexions and of 
costumes. Nearly everything in the line 
of merchandise can be obtained in the 
passar, where the needs and the vices of 
mankind are equally pampered to. Into 
this Oriental hive of industry strolled a 
quartette of Europeans after obtaining leave to absent themselves 
from the barracks until tattoo. Charles Brullier, who had been in 
these quarters before, volunteered to guide his comrades, Jan Ess- 
huis, August Wueppking and Daniel Schmidt, through the laby¬ 
rinth of architectural oddities, and directed their steps to Lim 
Hoe’s tonsorial establishment, where the deft fingers of the China¬ 
man and of his assistants beautified the faces and cleaned the ears 
of their patrons with a great array of little razors, brushes and 
tweezers. The saunterers then entered a restaurant, the proprietor 
of which, Sariman, was a Malay who had been a cook on sailing 
vessels flying the German and British flags and had acquired smat¬ 
terings of several European tongues. On this account his place 
was much frequented by the soldiers and sailors stopping at Pa- 
damg-Laut: As the Dutch government does not allow breweries to 
be erected in its East Indian possessions in order to secure a mo¬ 
nopoly of the traffic in the amber fluid to its home market, beer is a 
very expensive luxury in those quarters, and consequently gin and 
palm-wine are the 'beverages most generally drank by the soldiery. 

After ordering absinthe for himself and gin for his companions, 
Brullier remarked: “I should not be surprised if there were some 
letters for me at the postoffice. If you will wait for me here, I will 
see about it and hurry back.” 

Twenty minutes later Brullier returned with a joyful expression 




20 


EIGHT YEiARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


ill his face and told his comrades: “I have received a letter from 
my brother, who owns a plantation at Paya-'K'ombo, through 
which we will pass on our march to Mandaheling. He invites our 
entire detachment to spend a day at his place. I can assure you 
that we will have a good time under his roof.” 

“Good!” the three others shouted in chorus. 

“When is our company to leave for the interior?” Brullier in¬ 
quired. 

“At sunrise to-morrow,” Esshuis replied. 

“That suits me exactly,” Brullier said; “for I do not like to tarry 
at this place any longer than is necessary for making a call at the 
home of my lost Si-Wardi and ascertaining whether her parents 
know what has become of her. They are Malay peasants and reside 
near the limits of the city. Will you accompany me?” 

“Certainly!” was the unanimous response of Esshuis, Wueppking 
and Schmidt, who were as anxious to please their friend Brullier as 

they were curious to learn 
something more about the 
history of the Malay wo¬ 
man whom the accom¬ 
plished Brullier had suc¬ 
ceeded in capturing in spite 
of the dangers connected 
with such a task. 

Charles Brullier was the 
assumed name of Karl von 
Horn, an Austrian noble¬ 
man, who had left his na¬ 
tive country some ten years 
ago and entered the Ger¬ 
man army. On account of 
an affair of honor he was 
obliged to flee soon after¬ 
wards and made for the 
Hutch border at Arnheim, 
where he sold his horse at 
a fair in progress at the 
time. With the proceeds 
of the sale he traveled to 
Liege, where he bought bf 
a Jew a passport issued in 
, „ . an adventurous disposition 

and tired of the annoying conventionalities of the old world he 
enlisted in the Dutch East Indian service at Harderweyk and spent 
six years on the Achinese frontier. Shortly before he was mus¬ 
tered out, he was sent back to Java via Padang-Laut, While wait¬ 
ing in this seaport for the arrival of the transport, he passed part 



the name of one Charles Brullier. Of 



SI-WARDI. 


21 


of his time in sauntering about in the suburbs. One afternoon he 
stopped at a bamboo hut to quench his thirst with a cup of milk 
or wine. It was here that he met Si-Wardi, a Malay girl of sixteen 
years, whose light brown complexion reminded Brullier of Southern 
European types. She was tall, lithe and of perfect, proportions. 
The beauty of her oval face was heightened by soft black eyelashes 
which shaded a pair of large and lustrous almond-shaped eyes. Her 
hands and feet were small, a characteristic of the Malay race. Her 
teeth were of pearly whiteness and had been filed down into two 
perfectly symmetrical rows in accordance with the custom prevail¬ 
ing in those countries. Si-Wardi was the only daughter of an aged 
Malay couple who cultivated a tract of land in the vicinity of 
Padang-Laut. When Brullier addressed her in Malay, the lingua 
franca of the East Indies, which he spoke very fluently, purple 
blushes shone through her brown cheeks, giving her an extraor¬ 
dinarily fresh and innocent appearance. Brullier was thoroughly 
smitten with her chafms and, being familiar with the usages of the 
Malays, lost no time in idle and pompous declarations of undying 
affection, nor did he employ the arts and blandishments acquired 
in the polite capitals of Western Europe to gain possession of the 
sweet creature, but merely said in a voice throbbing with passion: 

“Kowe mow kassi kowepunja ati man- 
is?” “Will vou give me your sweet 
heart?” 

“Mau tuan! saja suca sekali sama 
kowe.” # “Yes, sir, I love you very much,” 
was Si-Wardi ? s answer, who, while mak¬ 
ing a. step forward toward her new lord, 
bowed deeply and lowered her folded 
hands. Brullier covered her hands with 
his own and pressed his forehead for a 
moment against hers, but, although fairly 
carried away with delight at his rapid suc¬ 
cess, refrained from sealing the bond with 
passionate lasses or gentle embraces, be¬ 
cause such is not the custom of the Orien¬ 
tals. Si-Wardi and Brullier then went to 
her parents, who were working in a near¬ 
by field, and asked their consent, which 
was given after Brullier had paid the 
father a round sum of money. The latter 
begged him to leave the country as soon as possible and with the 
utmost secrecy, in order to protect the girl from the persecution of 
the fanatical hadjis, who hound to death every Malay woman of 
Menang-Kebau, who as much as converses with or receives a gift, 
however triflipg, from one not of their creed. Brullier heeded the 
advice and hastened with his bride to Java, after bribing the ser- 



32 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MAHAYS. 


geant-major to allow him to take aboard the transport his fair com¬ 
panion without going through a lot of irksome formalities. 

Soon after the arrival of the couple at Weltevreden, Brullier, 
whose term of service had expired, re-enlisted and spent a year of 
unalloyed bliss with his affectionate and faithful Malay beauty in 
a pretty little bamboo cottage in the vicinity of the barracks of that 
place. One evening Brullier, upon his return from guard duty, 
found his gentle mate missing. Diligent inquiries revealed to him 
the fact that she had been carried off by a hadji. He shuddered at 
the thought, which his calm reason told him was well founded, that 
the fanatical priesthood had at last secured their victim who had 
dared to disregard their dictates, -and dreaded the worst for his be¬ 
loved one. He succeeded in getting himself transferred to service 
on the Achinese frontier, hoping that while stopping for a day or 
two at Padang-Laut, he might gain some information concerning 
the fate of her, whose memory was deeply enshrined in his heart. 

Brullier and his comrades soon reached Si-Wardi’s parental roof 
and entered. The old people were exceedingly astonished to see 
him again and bade him and his companions welcome with Oriental 
hospitality. Brullier noticed a strange sadness in the countenances 
of the aged couple and an intuitive apprehension of the truth 
flashed through his mind. 

“Deri mana Si-Wardi?” “Where is Si-Wardi?” he asked in an 
almost trembling tone of voice. 

“Allah tobatf dia jedi mati soeda lama.” “God have mercy on us! 
she is dead long ago,” was the father’s reply. 

Si-Wardi’s mother then informed Brullier that soon after the 
latter’s departure the hadjis got wind of Si-Wardi’s escapade and 
detailed one of their number to bring her back, dead or alive. 
Hadji Abu, one of the most remorseless and fanatical Mohammedan 
priests, was entrusted with the task. By approaching Si-Wardi dur¬ 
ing Brnllier’s absence from his cottage and working on her religious 
prejudices, he succeeded in finally inducing her to return with him 
to Sumatra. The hadji had no sooner reached home with his victim 
than he cut her throat and threw her body into a mountain stream. 

Brullier, though by no means addicted to sentimentality, was yet 
for the moment crushed by the recital of the story of the end of the 
lovely Si-Wardi, to whom he had been fondly attached and whose 
possession flattered his pride. When he realized to its full extent 
the wrong done him and his dead mistress by the crafty hadjis, he 
gave vent to his wrath in the most unmeasured terms and his com¬ 
rades experienced great difficulty in getting him to calm himself 
sufficiently to return with them to the camp. On their way back, 
they stopped at a tavern and assisted Brullier in partially drowning 
his grief in torrents of gin. In consequence, when they reached 


SI-WARDI. 


23 


the barracks, Esshuis was barely able to. stand on his feet and ten 
small flasks of gin, which he had concealed about his person and 
attempted to smuggle into the barracks, were confiscated and he 
himself locked up in the guard-house for the night. 





CHAPTER III. 


A VARIEGATED CONVOY. 

HEN" the reveille was sounded at five o’clock the 
next morning, the troops brought over by the 
Soorakarta bestirred themselves to get into the 
best possible condition for the tedious journey 
before them. Their destination was the military 
post of Mandaheling, which it would require 
about a fortnight’s marching to reach. At seven 
o’clock the convoy was in motion. As the gen¬ 
eral marching order insisted merely on the 
troops reaching a particular place on a certain 
day, and did not require an advance in solid col¬ 
umns, the men as well as the women were at liberty to accelerate or 
retard their steps at pleasure. The first to take the dusty highway 
was a division of some fifty two-wheeled ox-carts, containing muni¬ 
tions and provisions for the troops at the front. The grobaes,or carts, 
were drawn each by a pair of sapis, or East Indian oxen, which are 
distinguished by a large fatty hump directly back of their necks. 
Each cart was manned by a Javanese driver armed with a rattan 
cane, with which he incessantly belabored the backs of the beasts 
while exhorting them to greater speed with an occasional “ayou 
madjoo,” “make haste!” at the top of his voice. The jehus were 
clothed in short blue cotton trousers barely reaching to the knees. 
About the loins they wore the conventional sarongs, or plaids, 
which displayed a many-colored array of fantastic plants and ani¬ 
mals, especially dragon heads. The sarong is held in place by a 
leather belt supporting the hilt of a kris, or Javanese dagger. The 
jehus wore light jackets of indefinite color and turbans matching 
the sarongs in hue. Javanese turbans are distinguished from those 
of other nations by a triangular projection reaching down the fore¬ 
head to'Vhere the eyelashes meet. 

The carts themselves resembled miniature houses on wheels, for 
the intersection of the axle and the pole formed the center of grav¬ 
ity for the square wagon box, from the four corners of which 
wooden poles supporting a thatched roof to shield the driver from 
the merciless glare of the sun projected. Armed guards flanked the 
grobac division and kept a sharp lookout on the drivers and their 
loads. The children and women who were too weak to walk filled 
a few of the conveyances which were wending their way over the 
verdant hills, across the'cultivated plateaux and past the brink of 

(24) 





A VARIEGATED CONVOY. 25 

the countless ravines in that highly disrupted, mountain country. 

The rest of the detachment was afoot. The men as well as the 
women separated into groups of three or more of the same sex and 
carried on animated conversations while they panted along under 
the scorching sun. No attempt to preserve any kind of marching, 
order was made. The men sometimes walked ahead and sometimes 
fell back of the teams, and occasionally exhorted the women to 
wing their steps. The female contingent was nearly as numerous 
as the male, which was about three hundred strong, and presented 
interesting material for a study in complexions other than Cau¬ 
casian. The coffee-hued Javanese damsels wore hoovered sarongs 
reaching from the waist to the ankles, light cotton jackets of the 
same pattern and silver girdles, the links of which consisted of 
Dutch rixthalers. Wound diagonally around the body from hips to 
shoulders were the slendangs, which were worn by all the women 
and w r ere long and wide shawls of a mixture of silk and cotton 
and used for the easy conveyance of small sacks filled with boiled 
rice and . dried meat. In their ear-lobes the Javanese wore large, 
gold-plated, flat rings beset with diamonds. The dress of the Am- 
boinese women was very much like that of the Javanese, but 
evinced a daintier taste and better care. The hitam-manis, or ne- 
gresses varying in hues from the genuine African type to the quad¬ 
roon, w r ere distinguished by their love of flaming colors, their 
sarongs being red and their jackets striped white and red. Their 
sarongs were held in place by means of a cord instead of a girdle. 
The negresses and the Amboinese carried stretched over their heads 
big Chinese parasols made of oiled paper, not so much for the sake 
of protecting their complexions against the sun as for the pleasure 
of indulging their vanity. The Javanese women besmear their 
faces with a solution of lime to prevent them from acquiring a 
deeper bronze. All the females v;ere barefooted and bareheaded 
and the children on the ox-carts wore white shirts, their only gar¬ 
ments, as an emblem of the inroads of Caucasian civilization. 

All the men except the officers and the guards were unarmed 
and wore blue linen trousers, white linen shirts, blue jackets and 
tall cloth caps with wide shades for the eyes. They carried knap¬ 
sacks on their backs. Dangling at their sides were square leather 
cases suspended by straps running across the shoulders. All the 
soldiers except the Javanese wore shoes. 

The rear was formed by about fifty chain-boys, mostly Javanese 
sentenced to penal labor for chicken-stealing, burglary, running 
amuck, and other crimes. They wore blue uniforms, and black 
turbans. Around their necks were iron rings which were fastened 
to a chain at night in order to prevent their escape. 

No halt was made until the kadoQ, or rest-station, of Dookoo- 
Waloo was reached at four o’clock in the afternoon, until which 
time the convoy slowly made its way through the gorgeous and 


26 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


romantic scenery of the rugged Gleh-Rajah. The narrow, dusty 
highway, covered alternately with yellow sand, red clay and gravel, 
described a. tortuous path around steep mountain ledges, past giddy 
ravines and canyons and across occasional level tracts of land, the 
sites of villages and plantations. Except where the hand of man 
had made a clearing, the entire country, including its crags, gorges, 
hills and mountains, was covered with an impenetrable mass of dark 
green foliage. The roar of mountain torrents rushing through ra¬ 
vines hundreds of feet below the road fell like weird music upon the 
ears of the marchers. Occasionally a far off cascade, glittering like 
a silver braid in the noonday sun, became visible and interrupted 
the stillness of a peaceful valley with its thunder. 

The branches of the primeval forest on either side of the road 

frequently overlap and 
form a shady bower. The 
silence reigning in the 
jungle, or rernbu, as it is 
called on Sumatra, in the 
daytime is rarely interrup¬ 
ted except by the continu¬ 
ous buzzing and humming 
of insects and the occa¬ 
sional screeching of the 
numerous monkeys. The 
absence of flowers in trop¬ 
ical forests is atoned for 
by the indescribably aro¬ 
matic odors emanating 
from the cinnamon trees, 
the vanilla bushes and 
other spice plants, and by 
the myriads of butterflies 
and dragon-flies of all 
hues and sizes disporting 
themselves in the sunlight. 
One of the few flowers 
blossoming all the year 
’round is the melatti, a 
large, white, bell-shaped flow r er, which the native women pick and 
crush and put into their hair in place of perfumery. The kombang- 
' melatti possesses a peculiarly strong, aromatic, almost intoxicating 
odor. The chief pest annoying the marchers was the morute, a 
kind of very small mosquito, which is in evidence during the day 
only. Its bite produces large red boils, which are very painful. 
Fans and handkerchiefs were kept in continual motion to ward it 
off. Every now and then, an uler-mera, a small, copper-hued 
poisonous snake, which had crawled over the edge of the forest to 




A VARIEGATED CONVOY. 


27 


sun itself in the road, would be picked up by a Javanese soldier 
and tossed aside. Their manner of handling this reptile is unique 
and almost incredible. As the Javanese invariably go barefooted, 
they acquire a remarkable degree of dexterity and nimbleness in 
their \feet. Thus, they will seize an uler-mera by the neck with 
their great and first toes as in a vise and hurl it back into the 
bushes. 

After a nine hours’ tiresome march the convoy suddenly emerged 
from the circuitous mountain path into a broad table-land, extend¬ 
ing on one side to the sea and bordered on the others by peaks of the 
G-leh-Rajah. To the right was a kadoo and to the left, on a moun¬ 
tain slope, a hospital for native soldiers. In the distance, coffee, 
tea and tobacco plantations and rice-fields became visible. The 
oxen were unharnessed and allowed to graze, and the carts moved 
closely together about the kadoo. The members of the entire con¬ 
voy hastened to deposit their luggage and a portion of their cloth¬ 
ing on the reed mats in the kadoo and recuperate from the fatigues 
of the day by taking a hath in the cool waters of a nearby stream. 

The njonjas of the officers had reached the place before the 
convoy and secured quarters at the residence of the doctor in 
charge of the hospital. They traveled in light carriages drawn by 
small horses of Sumatran breed, called kooda-aloos. 

Before sundown the supper of rice, savor (a kind of sauce), ding- 
ding (dried meat), tea and coffee, was disposed of. Most of the 
soldiers retired to sleep soon after they had eaten their fill, while 
the others preferred to spend several hours 
in the fresh night air blowing gently from 
the mountains. The women passed the 
time chatting, smoking cigarettes, which 
they twisted with great skill, and playing 
with Javanese cards. Many of the native 
soldiers were squatted about the kadoo 
in small groups and played at dice. Kro- 
mo Wonzo, whose acquaintance we made 
on board: of the Soorakarta, was a conspic¬ 
uous figure in the crowed. When it grew 
dark, he secured two lamps from the cus¬ 
todian of the kadoo, and placed them on 
either side of his gambling outfit, which 
w r as spread out on the grass. While at 
Padang-Laut, he made an unsuccessful at¬ 
tempt to be sent to the hospital on the 
plea of some feigned disease, but he failed 
in deceiving the examining surgeon on 
that occasion and was compelled to follow 
his comrades in their tramp through the Gleh-Ra,jah. In the early 
part of the evening Ivromo Wonzo did a rushing business, the jehus, 



28 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


soldiers and even the women risking their stalis, sukns and guilders 
on “high” and “low.” Later on Brullier appeared on the scene 
with his comrades and asked him whether there was any limit to 
the game. Ivromo'Wonzo informed him that he had sufficient 
money to bet against any amount that Brullier might wish to stake. 
Brullier chanced his money on “high,” losing successively twenty- 
five, fifty and seventy-five guilders. While Ivrorno Wonzo was 
twirling the die for the fourth time, Brullier changed his tactics, 
and placed the balance of his money, more than four hundred 
guilders, on “low.” He won, breaking Kromo Wonzo’s bank, who 
was derisively jeered at by Brullier’s companions and his own 
countrymen. The lucky wanner generously tossed a few guilders at 
him to enable him to continue his operation’s. 

Directly after the sun had gone down in the silvery waves of the 
distant Indian ocean, which w r as visible from the plateau of Dookoo- 
Waloo, the denizens of the forest began their evening concert. At 
first, swarms of mosquitoes, attracted by the odor of the victuals, 
appear and fill the air with their monotonous song. Then come 
the fireflies, illuminating the darkness with their phosphorescent 
glow. In the hollow bamboo posts of the kadoo, the lizards, whose 
hides present a blending of many colors with red spots on their 
backs, begin to emit from time to time their “rrrrrrrh, rrrrrrrh, 
chackoo, chackoo,” which a newly arrived European would be 
tempted to mistake for the mutterings of a parrot. The natives 
never disturb these reptiles which feed on mosquitoes. The numer- - 
ous bands of monkeys next begin their evening stroll from branch 
to branch, the females holding their young in the fore-arms, in 
quest of a brook to quench their thirst. Monkeys are very abundant 
in Sumatra and there is no escape from their screeching. The 
dismal howl of the wild dogs, with which the country abounds, is 
mingled with the occasional roar of a tiger in search of a stray deer 
or sheep. In the kadoo itself, which was nothing more than a big 
palm-log cabin capable of sheltering several hundred people, and 
in charge of a mandoor, or overseer, who kept a small store at one 
end of it, a few Javanese lamps lit up the faces of the sleepers. Sen¬ 
tinels paced to and fro on all sides of the kadoo and wagon-yard 
and shouted every half hour “all’s well.” 

Before the night was far advanced, the moon rose above the dark 
outlines of the mountains and lit up the landscape. Of a sudden, 
the roar of a tiger was followed by the report of a gun and con¬ 
siderable curiosity was manifested by those who were still awake 
about the kadoo, as to who the bold hunter venturing forth at that 
hour of the night might be. A native, who had repeatedly passed 
through this part of the island, informed the European sentinels 
that Soorayam was probably engaged in tiger-hunting. This fear¬ 
less maiden was the daughter of a Malay rajah in the district of 
Menang-Kebau, who perished in battle against the Dutch. She 


A VARIEGATED CONVOY. 


29 


was a woman of the strong-minded type, preferring an independent 
life in the wilderness to the subserviency of a Mohammedan wife. 
Although above want or the fear of want, she lived in a lonely 
bamboo dwelling in a mountain glen, supplied herself with the 
necessities of life from the nearest villages and followed tiger hunt¬ 
ing as a pastime. The natives revered her as a saint, for once, 
when the monarchs of the wilderness had become very hold and 
even invaded kampongs and carried off human beings, she gave 
chase to the beasts, many of which were laid low by her unerring 
aim. 










CHAPTER IV. 

A JAVANESE MOTHER-IN-LAW. 



IEUTENANT Schwarzenberg, who commanded 


the convoy, spent the night with his wife Augusta 
at the hospital surgeon’s residence, a large bam¬ 
boo house surrounded on all sides by a wide 
covered veranda and trellises along which climb¬ 
ing plants mounted to the low, overhanging 


roof. Their host, Mynheer van Leuwen, had 
been in charge of the hospital for a decade and 
made his abode very comfortable. His duties 
consisted in looking after some three hundred 
native soldiers who were suffering frbm wounds 
or the diseases peculiar to the lowlands of 


Sumatra, cholera, berri-berri and others, and were sent to Dookoo- 
Waloo to regain their health, while their white comrades in arms 
were sent to Fort de Koek, which is situated further up the moun¬ 
tains and has a much cooler climate. 

On the evening 6f the convoy’s arrival, Augusta and Si-Rama, 
the surgeon’s wife, enjoyed the cool night air on the veranda which 
commanded a fine view of the plain encircled on nearly all sides by 
the slopes of the Grleh-Rajah and through a wide fissure in which the 
distant Indian ocean appeared like a vast inky pall spread over a de¬ 
pression in the earth’s surface. Si-Rama was about twenty-five 
years of age, tfdiile Augusta was still in her teens, having but 
recently been taken out of a convent by her military lord and 
made his wife, on the strength of a mere promise and without much 
ceremony, according to the prevailing custom. While the women 
w r ere discussing the latest Batavian scandals and the newest Pari¬ 
sian styles, their husbands puffed away at Manila cigars and con¬ 
versed on a variety of topics. 

After the surgeon had satisfied the lieutenant’s curiosity con¬ 
cerning some unimportant military matters, of which he had heard 
through the patients under his care, the lieutenant remarked: 

“I presume, doctor, you are having rather a pleasant time of it 
on your isolated mountain, where your word is law.” 

“We certainly do not have to worry ourselves to death up here,” 
Mynheer van Leuwen replied, “as the inmates of our health station 
are all natives, who either recover very rapidly or go to the better 
world without making much fuss about it. Most of them are 
afflicted w r ith berri-berri, a disease resembling dropsy, which is ex- 


(30) 







A JAVANESE MOTHER-IN-LAW. 


31 


tremely common in the lowlands and curable if not too far ad¬ 
vanced A white hospital steward and his assistants relieve me 
from all arduous work except that of supervision and an occasional 
operation. Otherwise, I enjoy considerable leisure, which, as you 
will have perceived by this time, is a great boon in this climate, 
where even nervous and restless people soon learn to appreciate 
the delights of dolce far 
niente. Dookoo-Waloo is 
a pretty healthy spot and r 

my position almost an 
ideal one for a man who Jfe 

does not hanker much af¬ 
ter the accessories of Eu¬ 
ropean civilization. I oc¬ 
casionally treat a Malay 
dignitary for some trouble 
against which his native 
remedies have proved in¬ 
effectual. Some time ago 
I restored the vision of the 
chief of the village ad¬ 
joining the cascade you 
see dashing down yon 
precipice in the distance. 

He was exceedingly grate¬ 
ful and compelled me to 
accept an extraordinary 
fee in the form of gifts 
consisting of diamonds 
and precious stones and 
spread about his countrymen rumors of the supernatural powers 
which he fancies I possess. If I ever should take it into my head 
to spend my declining years elsewhere, I will take with me more 
than my salary.” 

“We officers,” the lieutenant said, “are not so fortunate. Un¬ 
less we succeed in obtaining promotion and in being entrusted with 
special missions, where the douceurs are worth while accepting, 
we have little opportunity of acquiring wealth, except in a manner 
unworthy of a soldier or a gentleman. Yet an officer, who is com¬ 
pelled. to rely exclusively on his pay to meet the expenses connected 
with his rank, would be a fool to remain here for a great length of 
time, because fevers and insects would rapidly enervate his system 
and destroy his ambition. I was told at Batavia that at a certain 
garrison the officers always smoked the most expensive brands of 
cigars and were fastidious even about the label of their champagne. 
These and other luxuries were furnished them gratis by a 'Chinese 
army contractor for the privilege of supplying the post with pro- 







32 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


visions, the quality of which, of course, was not up to the standard 
demanded by the government. The privates usually know better 
than to remonstrate against this unfair treatment and to court 
the danger of being blacklisted as ‘kickers/ The officers them¬ 
selves must be very guarded in their expressions on this topic for 
fear of incurring the ill-will of some of their less conscientious 
colleagues. I heard of a newly arrived lieutenant, a Prussian, who 
made some truthful but injudicious remarks about the quality of 
the rations furnished his men and was soon compelled to send in 
his resignation to escape the ostracism of his colleagues.” 

“This is not an uncommon occurrence,” observed the surgeon. 
“I learned of an opposite case, however, which happened on the 
Achinese frontier recently. The soldiers of a white company 
grumbled about their food and complained to the captain. The 
captain, who was in collusion with the contractors, warned them 
not to again appear before him with complaints of that nature, but 
the men succeeded in interesting their lieutenants in the matter, 
who brought the case before a higher military authority which 
ordered a court martial ending in the ' captain’s dishonorable dis¬ 
charge. But such things are soon forgotten in this indolent land. 
By the way, lieutenant, if d may ask, where did you pick up your 
charming njonja?” 

“Same old story,” the lieutenant answered, “left old loves and 
debts behind me in Vienna, got a commission from the Dutch 
government, colleagues at Batavia posted me on customs of this 
blooming climate, put on solemn airs, drove to convent at Sama- 
rang, talked with fat priest, promised everything and picked out 
Njonja Augusta, who reminded me more than any other of the 
convent girls of the lively maids I left behind me on the Danube. 
I presume you went through the same performance.” 

“Exactly,” the doctor said with a smile, “and I think we were 
both lucky in our choice. No relatives, no mother-in-law, in fact, 
no impediments of any kind to mar the enjoyment of the exclusive 
attention of our olive-hued beauties. Think of all the red tape 
wasted in the old country to tie down Cupid as with anchor chains! 
How different here! Take your choice and no questions asked, is 
, the rule. The njonjas age more rapidly than their white sisters, 
but they are very submissive and affectionate if moderately well 
treated. Curtain lectures ? I could not realize such an idea.” 

Njonja Augusta was a rather handsome woman of sixteen, or 
seventeen years, medium height and light yellow complexion har¬ 
monizing with her brown eyes and black hair. She wore a white 
jacket bordered by lace and a gold-braided sarong reaching from 
the waist to the ankles and held in place by a gilded girdle. Her 
gold-embroidered slippers hid small, daintily shaped feet encased in 
white silk hose. Her hands displayed one or more diamond rings 
on each of the fingers, and diamonds also glittered in her ear-drops. 


A JAVANESE' MOTHER-IN-LAW. 33 

Her long hair was done up in a knot and adorned with roses and 
melattis gathered in the hospital garden. 

Si-Rama was attired in nearly the.same fashion as her guest. 

She was shorter in stature and considerably 
stouter, an emblem of- her more advanced 
age. Her eyes were blue and her hair dark 
brown. 

The \yomen were munching the delicious 
aromatic durian fruit, to taste which is, in 
the language of an eminent naturalist, alone 
worth a visit to the tropics, and recalling 
scenes of their convent life. 

Augusta’s father had been a non-commis¬ 
sioned officer, an Austrian by the name of 
Radetzky, who fell at Samalanga in a skir¬ 
mish with the Achinese. Her mother was a 
Javanese by the name of Si-Idup, from 
whom a priest took the four year old girl 
at the death of the father and placed her 
in a convent, where she was taught to sing, 
pray, sew, embroider and the rudimentary 
branches of knowledge, until the gallant and 
dashing lieutenant took a fancy to her and 
relieved her from the monotonous company of the nuns. Si-Rama 
had been brought up in the same convent and was pleased to hear 
of the changes that had taken place in that institution since the 
doctor had appeared within its white stone walls and claimed her in 
Oriental knight-errant- style. 

“You must be very happy with your young and accomplished 
officer,” Si-Rama remarked to Augusta; “he appears to be a shining 
specimen of a European cavalier, dignified, courteous, affectionate 
and much devoted to you.” 

“Yes, but I detest these long and tedious journeys over dusty 
roads and through monotonous forests and mountains, where one 
only occasionally meets a friend like yourself with whom one can 
• talk a few sensible words. I wish we were arrived at our destina¬ 
tion, where there is a big garrison, many officers and njonjas, balls 
and theaters, and a grand reception at the controller’s palace once 
a w^eek.” 

“You will enjoy all these things soon enough,” Si-Rama said; 
“for the present you ought to be contented with having escaped 
from the dismal convent walls, the sour-faced nuns and the bald- 
headed priests, and with enjoying the love of a member of the elite 
and the many strange sights in this wild and great island. If you 
are fond of a fine drive to a pretty scene, I will ask my laki (hus¬ 
band) to order the carriages in readiness to take us all, at an early 
hour to-morrow morning, to the beautiful cascade, the spray of 




I 


34 EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


which is carried by the wind close to the Malay village of Kotta 
Kedang, where the natives possess a very light brown complexion, 
blond hair and blue eyes. They *are Mohammedans, but are not as 
fanatic as the other Malays.” 

“With pleasure do I accept your invitation, my dear,” Augusta 
replied, “for where thou goest, I go.” 

The employment of biblical phrases on all possible occasions is 
a habit common to most njonjas who are brought up in convents, 
where the singing of hymns and praying constitutes the chief part 
of their education. 

Before retiring the party adjourned to the parlor, where the 
.women alternately thumped the popular airs of the day on the 
piano and accompanied each other with their thin soprano voices. 

After the morning inspection was over, Lieutenant Schwarzen- 
berg instructed Timothy Slonderwacht, his eldest sergeant, to pro¬ 
ceed with the convoy on the road to Padang-Pandjang, where they 
were expected to arrive before nightfall. The surgeon and the 
lieutenant and their wives then entered two light carriages and 
were driven at a rapid rate to the foot of a cascade formed by a 
brook tumbling over a precipice some five hundred feet high, and 
then meandering through the plantations with which the plain 
was dotted. The force of the water had hollowed out the rocks at 
the base, where the spray dashing in all directions gave the trees 
and shrubs on the banks of the stream a tinge of the most wonder¬ 
fully fresh green. After descending to a few other terraces in the 
same manner, the stream finally fell over the steep coast cliffs into 
the Indian ocean. The roar of the waterfall drowned the voices of 
the visitors who halted on the shady side of a big tree and breathed 
in the cool draught produced by the clouds of spray. 

The party then repaired to the Malay village of Ivotta Kedang, 
where the doctor intended to visit the kapella kampong, or village 
chief, who had placed himself under his treatment. The village 
consisted of about thirty bamboo houses constructed in the native 
style, with the exception, however, that the atap roofs were pro¬ 
tected from the decaying influences- of the climate by a zinc cover¬ 
ing which was especially useful in keeping out the frequent heavy 
rains. Kotta Kedang contrasted favorably with other Malay kam- 
pongs, by its greater evidences of prosperity and cleanliness and 
especially by the absence of offensive smells. The lighter com¬ 
plexion of the inhabitants was accounted for by the fact that a 
century and a half ago a Dutch sea captain, who had grown tired of 
sailing and taken a fancy to the place, made it his home, adopted 
the polygamous habits of the Mohammedan Malays and became the 
sire o-f a numerous progeny, in whom the admixture of Caucasian 
blood was plainly visible. The captain died at the advanced age 
of one hundred and twenty years and was interred at Fort de Kock, 
where the inscription on the tombstone erected to his memory 


A JAVANESE MOTHER-IN-LAW. 


35 


pleads for the salubrity of that region by accentuating the long 
years of life allotted the deceased captain. 

The surgeon stepped into the house of the kapella kampong and 
the ladies, escorted by the lieutenant, sauntered about the village. 
Seated on a bench beneath the low eaves of a hadji’s house were two 
women, one of whom wore the conventional veil of the Mohamme¬ 
dan women, while the face of the other was uncovered. Instead of 
the veil, the latter wore the green turban, indicating that she had 
visited the tomb of the prophet at Mecca. Si-Idup, the green- 
turbaned woman, had a careworn but good-natured appearance. 
She was displaying to the hadji’s wife samples of herbs supposed 
to possess medicinal virtues. Attracted by curiosity, the njonjas 
walked up to the two women and began a conversation with them 
after the usual suave and prolix introductory Oriental greetings, 
while the lieutenant out of respect kept himself at a slight distance. 
Si-Idup, who was scrutinizing Augusta very closely, suddenly 
asked her: 

“Whence do you come?” 

“From Batavia, and I am on the wdy to Mandaheling with my 
husband,” Augusta replied. 

Si-Idup passed her hand over her forehead as if attempting to 
resurrect an ancient memory out of time’s cobweb layers, and said: 

“Your features appear very familiar to me. I must have seen 
you before.” 

In response to further inquiries on the part of the old Javanese 
woman, Augusta told her of her convent life and her union with 
Lieutenant Schwarzenberg. Si-Idup’s eyes seemed to grow larger 
and larger and animated by a strange fire when she finally asked 
the njonja: 

“Do you recollect who brought you to the convent?” 

“My recollection of my earlier years is very dim,” Augusta 
answered; “but I still have in my mind a vivid picture of an old 
fat priest. He came to the convent at Samarang occasionally and 
I remember him wrangling with a Javanese woman about some¬ 
thing, probably myself, and then taking me to the convent, where 
he left me in charge of the nuns.” 

Augusta then told her of what she knew by hearsay of her 
father. Of her mother she knew nothing, her identity having 
been carefully concealed from her and the mother herself having 
been informed in reply to all her inquiries concerning the fate of 
her daughter that she was being educated in Europe. 

Si-Idup remained silent for a few moments, while gazing in- 
• tently upon the figure and features of the younger wojnan, before 
asking her: 

“Have you not a large brown birthmark on your left arm, 
directly below the shoulder?” 


36 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


“So it is,” Augusta replied; “but how do you come to ask this 

question?” . , 

“Because,” Si-Idup replied, her eyes rapidly growing moist, 
“because you are my daughter, my darling Selima, whom they took 
away from m« when she was a little tot and secreted in a gloomy 
convent, telling me all the while that she had been sent to- Negri- 
Blanda.” 

NTjonja. Augusta and her mother soon convinced themselves that 
they were not mistaken in the apprehension of their relationship. 
They sat down beside each other and wept for joy. Augusta, who 
knew what it was to have a mother only by hearsay, was glad of the 
event for another reason. Her husband had told her to look out 
for a suitable servant for herself as soon as they reached their place 
of destination, and as she was not overfond of bothering about 
household cares, she keenly relished the idea of leaving such 
trifling affairs to her pewly-found mother, who would undoubtedly 
deem it an honor to be entrusted with them and content herself 
with the proud consciousness of being the mother of a pretty 
njonja who had made a good match. When the lieutenant saw the 
affecting scene of reunion, he approached the women and was made 
aware of the valuable accession to his household, an event entirely 
pleasing to him, for it relieved his beloved Augusta of many cares 
and allowed her to devote herself exclusively to their mutual enter¬ 
tainment. 








CHAPTER V. 


AN AMBOINESE OTHELLO. 

HE lieutenant and his wife, accompanied by Si- 
'Idup, hastened to overtake the convoy, while 
the surgeon and his wife returned to their her¬ 
mitage on the mountain. Sergeant Slonder- 
wacht, a. big fat burly Dutchman, wfi'o was ex¬ 
tremely proud of being entrusted by the lieuten¬ 
ant with the temporary command of the trans¬ 
port, marched at the head of the column which 
was ascending the hills hiding from view Pa- 
dang-Pandjang, the next halting place. To¬ 
wards noon, the Malay kampong of Sibri was 
reached. In the meantime, the lofty peaks of 
Jongolo and Merapi “put on their caps,” as the natives say, that is, 
they became enveloped by a dense veil of clouds, a sure sign that 
a rainstorm was imminent. As there is little pleasure in getting 
soaked to the skin by a tropical shower, Slonderwacht commanded 
his subordinates to remain in the village until the sky was clear 
again. Accordingly, an hour’s rest was taken under Malay roofs, 
while the rain came down in torrents. Slonderwacht selected a se¬ 
cluded spot behind a bamboo hut and slowly emptied his field 
flask of its contents, his favorite beverage, gin. Corporal Eeldhuis, 
who worshipped Venus rather than Bacchus, frequently took off 
his cap to permit the women to admire his magnificent blond locks 
and his big blue eyes, which he considered irresistible to any black, 
brown; bronze or olive-hued female in the East Indian Archipelago. 
While standing about a warong, where some Malay tradesmen were 
selling delicacies to the hungry members of the expedition, he 
espied an Amboinese woman, who was affecting the bashful de¬ 
meanor of her white sisters,, timidly coming his way, as though in 
search of something or somebody. 

Feldhuis, who believed with Caesar in the veni, vidi, vici method, 
had no sooner rested his eyes on her tall and graceful figure, than he 
stepped up to her and invited her to a dish of pisang-gdreng (fried 
bananas) and liquid refreshments. Mariana, such was her name, 
was the wife of Juro di Ivromo, a Christian Amboinese soldier of 
the convoy: She smiled blandly with her small, well-formed mouth, 
displaying two rows oDpearly teeth, and accepted without saying a 
word the flattering invitation of the blond Dutchman. While she 
was finishing her luncheon with a cup of savory palm-wine, her 

( 37 ) 



38 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


spouse drew near and asked her to join him. She refused to obey 
at once, saying that she would be with him after a while. JurO’ di 
Kromo passed .on, not wishing to incur the displeasure of his 
superior. Feldhuis and Mariana soon parted after having made an 
appointment to meet each other near the barracks of Padang- 
Pandjang in the evening. A feeling of jealousy was aroused in 
Juro diKromo’s heart and studiously fed 
by the jeering remarks of his comrades. 

The picturesque village of Sibri com¬ 
prised a cluster of bamboo houses rest¬ 
ing on posts six feet above the ground. 
The dwellings have high-pitched roofs 
and overhanging eaves and are frequent¬ 
ly covered with carved work exhibiting 
occasionally good taste, especially in the 
district of Menang-Kebau, where the 
natives are in a rather prosperous con¬ 
dition. The houses are devoid of furni¬ 
ture, the place of chairs, benches and 
beds being supplied by mats. Their 
couches consist of reed mats stretched 
across skeleton tables made of bamboo 
sticks, called bali-bali. The floor is made 
of split bamboo and is a shaky affair. 
The village would be a model of 
cleanliness but for the stinking mudholes, used as receptacles for 
all waste matter, under the houses. The village is surrounded by a 
high fence as a protection against tigers and thieves. 

When the rain subsided and the sun poured its vertical rays upon 
the countless pools of water formed in the village street, the earth 
appeared to be steaming and the air was filled with a strong earthy 
odor. Slonderwacht roused himself from his stupor and again took 
his place at the head of the column on its march to Padang-Pand- 
jang, which is situated on a hilly tract surrounded by mountains 
and was reached after the lapse of several hours. The lieutenant 
overtook the convoy shortly after the latter emerged from Sibri, and 
resumed command. 

Padang-Pandjang is a recruiting station and an important mil¬ 
itary depot. In its capacious barracks the members of the convoy 
were quartered in the same manner as at Padang-Laut. In the 
canteen Brullier, Esshuis, Saufhaus, Schmidt and Corporal Feld¬ 
huis were drinking, singing and reimbursing themselves with out¬ 
bursts of hilarity for the fatigues of the march. Feldhuis at¬ 
tracted some attention by drinking very sparingly and soon left the 
canteen. Sergeant Slonderwacht dropped in at 9 o’clock and 
informed Brullier and Schmidt that they had to do guard duty in 
the corridors of the barracks of the white soldiers for the night. 



AN AMBOINESE OTHELLO. 


39 


Tattoo- was sounded half an hour later, the canteen was closed 
and the guests retired to their quarters. 

Brullier, who stood guard at a side door, observed that Corporal 
Feldhuis did not appear with the sergeant when the latter called the 
roll and gave out the orders for the next day. After the sergeant 
had gone, Brullier whispered to Schmidt, who was posted on the 
opposite entrance, that Feldhuis must have gone to a tete-a-tete 
with Mariana, the fair Amboinese. Brullier’s suspicions proved cor¬ 
rect, for at an appointed hour the corporal and the Amboinese 
woman met beneath the dark shade of a tall waring! tree a short dis¬ 
tance from the row of barracks and gave themselves up to the 
indulgence of their illicit desires. 

Juro di Kromo did not immediately notice the absence of his 
wife after the roll had been called in his quarters,—for the women 
are not allowed in the barracks until after that event,—and con¬ 
soled himself for some time with the thought that she might have 
been delayed by one thing or another. He was addicted to the 
opium habit, which was particularly displeasing to Mariana and 
concerning which she had frequently remonstrated with him in 
vain. With increasing anxiety he waited for her until near mid¬ 
night, when he arose, hid his kris in his garments and passed the 
guards under a pretext. 

The Amboinese had gotten but a short distance from the bar¬ 
racks, when he heard a melodious voice, which he immediately 

recognized as that of his 
wife, whispering dulcet 
words of love to some one. 
Stealthily approaching in 
the direction of the sounds, 
he paused at the foot of 
the broad waringi tree, on 
the other side of which 
the corporal and Mariana 
were cooing in the melodi¬ 
ous Malay idiom. His 
blood began to- curdle in 
his veins when he recog¬ 
nized in Mariana’s para¬ 
mour the corporal who 
had aroused the green- 
kyed monster within him 
by the attentions he paid 
her in the ^falay kampong 
at noon. While disengag¬ 
ing -his kris, Juro di 
Kromo made a slight 
noise which put the watch¬ 
ful Feldhuis on his guard 



40 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


and caused him to start up and scan the darkness about him. He 
had barely risen to his feet, when the irate Amboinese, mad 
with jealousy and the effects of opium, dashed around the tree 
and confronted the guilty couple with his sharp kris brandished in 
his right hand. The corporal, knowing the hesitancy of the native 
soldiers to lay hands upon a European, covered his face with his 
handkerchief and started to fly, in order to conceal his identity, 
when the injured husband, whose fury wa,s increased by every 
fraction of a second, intercepted his path and laid him low with 
one blow of his kris. Mariana, who was stricken with terror at the 
sudden appearance of her lawful lord, attempted to seize him by the 
arm when he was about to deliver the fatal stroke and shrieked 
“Have mercy! hold on!” but Juto di Kromo tossed her aside as 
though she was a mere reed, for patience and all other virtues in¬ 
culcated into him by his Christian preceptors deserted him under 
the joint effects of the narcotic and of the knowledge of the indis¬ 
putable infidelity of his spouse. When Mariana saw her lover laid 
low by her husband, she ran towards the barracks with incredible 
speed," as though infernal hosts were pursuing her, and all the 
while shrieking faintly—for her rapid strides engaged all her lung 
power—“amuck! amuck!” to'warn the unsuspecting garrison that 
some one had committed murder and would not stop steeping his 
hands in blood until he was seized or killed. 

Brullier and Schmidt, who were pacing to and fro along the 
barracks of the whites, which were next to those of the Amboinese, 
heard the ominous cries and beheld a woman running towards them 
with streaming hair and Juro di Kromo wildly brandishing his kris 
above his head and rushing past the paralyzed guards into the 
Amboinese quarters. The amuck-runner hastily snatched a gun 
and a pouch, full of cartridges from the rack as soon as he was 
inside the Amboinese barracks and took position in a comer of the 
dormitory. Mariana’s cries of “amuck! amuck!” and the gongs of 
the sentinels immediately apprized Sergeant Slonderwacht, who 
commanded the guard for the night, of the fact that something 
was wrong. With a dozen men he approached the scene of the 
disturbance and ordered two of them to proceed against the amuck- 
maker with fixed bayonets. The men had scarcely crossed the 
threshold of the barracks when Juro. di Kromo fired at them in 
rapid succession, killing them on the spot. He knew that, after 
killing Feldhuis, death awaited him in any event, and therefore he 
resolved to sell his life as dearly as possible and to keep up a 
carnival of slaughter as long as his ammunition would hold out. 
His frenzy had but one purpose in view—to kill. 

Two hundred Amboinese, who with their wives were peacefully 
reposing in their couches before the loud cries of “amuck!” and 
the reports of the maniac’s gun interrupted their slumbers, did 
not stir, but lay stone-still, with their blankets wrapped closely 


AN , AMBOINESE OTHELLO. 


41 


about them, for fear that if they popped up their heads to satisfy 
their curiosity, a stray bullet might end their precious lives. Ser¬ 
geant Slondenvacht was woefully perplexed regarding what to do to 
render harmless the madman who kept on firing his gun wildly in 
all directions, when Brullier, a man of gigantic stature and iron 
nerve, who took in the situation at a glance, crept unobserved 
through one of the doors and under the iron bedsteads of the 
shivering Amboinese to th*e corner where Juro di Ivromo was deal¬ 
ing out death, seized a favorable moment when the latter found 
some difficulty in expelling an empty cartridge from his gun and 
threw himself upon him with irresistible might. To dash the. gun 
out of his hands, seize him by the throat and plant his feet upon 
his breast was the work of a second. Juro di Kromo was put in 
irons after having killed his rival, seven Germans and Dutchmen, 
six women and children and two chain-boys. Mariana was so 
affected by the terrible scene, of which her doings were the proxi¬ 
mate cause, that her mind became disordered and she wandered 
about uttering by turns the wildest curses and the most melan¬ 
choly lamentations, until the authorities took charge of her and 
sent her to the asylum for the insane at Samarang on Java. 

In the moripng Juro di Kromo was taken before the officers 
who employed all means at their command to get him to talk and 
explain the motives of his dreadful deed, but the culprit remained 
as silent as the grave, stolidly refusing to say a single word or even 
utter a sound. His countenance appeared as though his soul had 
* been rent asunder by violent passions and his mental faculties 
dulled by their convulsions. Fierce hatred was the only emotion 
discernible in Ms eye. His trial dragged on wearily for over a year, 
because the authorities lived in hopes that the principal witness, 
his wife, would recover her reason. This not coming to . pass, 
however, short work was made at last, and Juro di Kromo was 
sentenced to expiate his crimes on the gallows. While in prison, 
he was, of course, deprived of his opium pipe, and occasionally be¬ 
trayed signs of deep remorse. 



CHAPTER VI. 


FORT DE KOCK. 


HE next morning the convoy started on its way 
to Fort de Kock, or Bukit-Tingi, as it is called 
*by the Malays, the residence of the Rajah of 
the district of Menang-Kebau, who has long 
since been relieved by the Dutch of the prac¬ 
tical cares of governing. The rajah receives 
a liberal annual stipend from the colonial gov¬ 
ernment, enabling him to live in style in his 
bamboo residence in the vicinity of Fort de Kock. 

On leaving Padang-Pandjang, the road rises gradually and leads 
through a series of broad valleys studded with native villages half 
hidden by clusters of fruit trees and with attractive villas inhabited 
by planters or retired Dutch officials who have justly selected this 
region as the finest retreat to be found anywhere in the world, for 
the climate is cool, agreeable and invigorating, the vegetation luxu¬ 
riant, the scenery romantic and the general aspects of the country 
civilized and pleasing. 

Fort de Kock occupies one of the most elevated of the countless 
little plateaux formed by the disrupted Gleh-Rajah and permits a 
splendid view of the surrounding territory. To the north, the 
lofty peaks of Jongolo and Merapi tower towards the,dark blue 
heavens in clear weather or are shielded from mortal gaze by a 
cloud-veil when moisture gathers in the atmosphere. During the 
day a film of light blue smoke is continually issuing from the crater 
of Merapi, a still active volcano. At night, streaks-of flame occa¬ 
sionally shoot up from the bowels of Merapi, a warning to the 
animated nature about him that he is not yet dead, which is con¬ 
firmed by the frequency of earthquake shocks. To the south, the 
Gleh-Rajah continue their course to the Strait of Sunda. To the 
east, they slope gradually towards the impenetrable morasses bor¬ 
dering on the Straits of Malacca. To the west, a glimpse of Padang- 
Laut and the sea may be obtained through a good field glass. 

Fort de Kock is the most noted health station of Sumatra. It 
has a constant floating population of about, one thousand sick and 
convalescing soldiers, besides many planters and others who flock 
thither from all parts of the island to recover from the berri-berri, 
malaria and all kinds of fevers, to which foreigners as well as 
natives are subject. The nights are very cool, necessitating woollen 
blankets for comfort. 



(42) 



FORT DE KOCK. 


43 









































































































44 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


The old stone fort built by the Dutch in the center of the town 
a century ago has been in ruins for a long time past, having been 
wrecked by an earthquake. The battalion stationed at the place 
is constantly recruited from the convalescents dismissed from the 
hospital. The town boasts of the largest bazaar in Menang-Kebau, 
to which thousands of Malays flock three times a week from all 
parts of the district to sell their products and purchase luxuries with 
the proceeds. At one end of the town is a very large fish pond 
surrounded by a well-kept park and the dwellings of the hadjis. 
The pond is formed by the widening of a mountain rivulet and is 
thickly studded with carp. Some thirty or forty years ago, an 
Austrian officer* in the employ of the Dutch government and with 
an eye to business, suggested to the hadjis in charge of the pond 
that it would be a good scheme on their part, in order to increase 
their prestige with their followers, to stud the pond with big fish 
and make the natives believe that Allah had responded to the 
hadjis’ speqjal prayer for them. The Mohammedan priests never 
permit an opportunity to turn an honest penny to escape them, and 
the Austrian, in consideration of valuable presents given him, se¬ 
cured a supply of carps’ eggs from his native country and planted 
them in the waters of the pond. The eggs *were soon hatched and 
the carp grew to their natural proportions and were liberally fed 
with bananas purchased by the pious tisitors at stands specially 
erected along the banks for that purpose. The carp, being invi¬ 
olate, are very tame and will swim to the shore and eat fruit out of 
the hands of persons holding it close to the water’s level. 

Near the pond are a few missigits, or mosques, which are well 
patronized by the devout Moslem. A long time ago, a Malay legend 
says,> the people of 'Sumatra were Buddhists. A youth, of Menang- 
Kebau, actuated by a desire to see the world, made a trip to Mecca, 
where he was converted to the creed of the prophet. Upon his 
return, he wore the green turban and assumed the title of hadji. 
One of the first things he did was to command his mother to quit 
chewing betel. Upon her refusal to do so, he flew into a fanatic 
rage and stabbed her. The Malays, instead of punishing Iris crime, 
revered him as a saint who had given evidence of his sincerity by 
assassinating his mother for the sake of Ms religion, and became 
converts to Islamism. 

The fanaticism of the natives .is in strange contrast to the in¬ 
difference of the European soldiers and civilians in the Dutch East 
Indies, who never exhibit even the slightest token of religious 
fervor. In all the posts a small space is set aside as a chapel, but 
attendance at divine service is not compulsory. It rarely happens 
that any of the soldiers except the Christian Amboinese and the 
negroes take any part in religious ceremonies. One day the arrival 
of several missionaries, who were to preach in a big hall in the 
evening, was announced to the soldiers at Fort de Koek and a 


FORT DE KOCK. 


45 


general leave of absence granted on that account, but not one out 
of seven hundred white soldiers attended the services. The men 
preferred to drink gin in the canteen or to saunter with their wives 
through the beautiful parks, where a military band plays every 
night when the weather is fair. 

A short distance from the hospital is a peculiar institution, a 
kind of soldiers’ home, called by the natives Kampong Blanda— 
White Village—which covers about forty acres of ground and is 
intersected by straight streets lined with pretty bamboo houses 
built in European styles and peopled by retired veterans of the 
Colonial army, who dread a return to their native lands on account 
of the hardships a change of climate would impose upon their worn 
out frames, and who prefer to spend the evening of their days in 
the earthly paradise of Fort de Kock in the company of each other 
and of their patient and submissive Javanese housekeepers. The 
tropical regions, beingy contrary to natural expectation, devoid of 
gorgeous flowers, the veterans of Kampong Blanda employ a por¬ 
tion of their spare funds in importing from Europe choice varieties 
of roses, lilies, lilacs and other beautiful flowers and shrubs and 
planting them at the foot of cocoanut palms and waringis in the 
small gardens encircling their cottages. The absence of song-birds 
in the tropics is supplied by canary birds brought over in cages from 
Hong Kong by Chinese traders. 

While the convoy was approaching the idyllic retreat of the 
veterans in this paradisiacal region and enjoying the prospect of a 
long day’s rest before being sent on to the frontier, Colonel van der 
Pool, commanding at Fort de*Kock, was exercising convalescing sol¬ 
diers on intersecting roads. When this officer beheld the new troops 
coming, he set out to meet them at the head of his column and 
the band. After exchanging the brief military salutations, all pro¬ 
ceeded in military order to the barracks, where the troops were 
given a day’s rest before receiving their equipment and being sent 
to the frontier at Mandaheling. 

It was .a gala night in the canteen.of Fort de Kock. The new 
comers, exhausted by a tedious journey from the coast across the 
mountain passes to the Highland Eden, mingled freely with their 
comrades im arms on the convalescent list, and many old friend¬ 
ships, cemented by mutual dangers in skirmishes with Achinese 
pirates and Battah cannibals, were renewed and baptized afresh 
with streams of gin and wine. Brullier, who had previously seen 
six years’ service in Sumatra, was in a particularly jolly mood, the 
beautiful environments having to some degree assuaged his grief 
for the loss of the peerless Si-Wapdi. Being plentifully supplied 
with funds, which Kromo Wonzo’s ill luck at dice had helped to 
swell, he invited a score of his European chums to go with him to 
the canteen and celebrate their happy arrival. 

The canteen is a very long and broad hall. It has a cement 


46 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


floor and a bamboo roof covered with atap. At one end there is 
a bar and at the other a stage. Javanese waiters were kept busy 
hurrying to and fro and supplying the thirsty warriors with liquid 
refreshments of all grades and kinds. The sides of the canteen were 
adorned with portraits of members of the reigning house of Holland 
and with battle-pictures of many wars. Brullier, Esshuis, Saufhaus 
and Schmidt were seated at a small table in the center of the hall 
and enjoying the wine and a lively conversation. 

“I am borry for our poor corporal,” said Saufhaus, a Swiss, who 
had a tinge of sentimentality in his nature; “he was a good fellow 
who would have made his mark some day, if he only had been able 
to suppress the Don Juan within him.” 

Esshuis, who was a fish-blooded, plethoric and cautious Dutch¬ 
man, grunted assent to the remark of his comrade and said: 

“I often warned him to beware of the treacherous Amboinese, 
who carefully hide all their emotions and store them up and inten¬ 
sify them for one terrific outbreak, but he laughed at me, trusting 
in his luck, which, he claimed, never deserted him. I knew that 
something terrible would happen to him some day.” 

“Ho one can escape his fate,” gravely remarked Schmidt, who 
had become a fatalist ever since he left his home on the Baltic and 
who had roamed over many lands and seas as a soldier and sailor. 

“Well, boys,” Brullier fell in; “we are getting altogether too 
sentimental. Feldhuis perished while attempting to anticipate the 
paradise of the Amboinese Othello. He is at rest, but we Have no 
paradise before us after we get to the scene of action. I can assure 
you of that, for I have been there. The savages in the northern part 
of the island take a peculiar delight in torturing you to death ot 
eating you for supper, and they are as impervious to the pleadings 
v of eloquence as a bamboo rod to water. A few months ago, Tuanku 
Iman Muda, the rajah of Tenom, on the northwestern coast of 
Ach'een, captured a vessel sailing under the British flag, which 
had the misfortune to get stranded among the cliffs, and the Dutch 
had a lively time of it while seeking to ransom the captured crew 
and to avoid difficulties with John Bull, wdio, you all know, is an 
exceedingly stubborn fellow. By the way, I will give you a song 
I have improvised for that occasion.” 

In the meantime the canteen had become a pandemonium of 
many voices speaking, shouting, singing and yelling, in a dozen 
languages. While Brullier was clearing his throat, his comrades 
beckoned to their nearest neighbors for the restoration of compara¬ 
tive quiet. When this was partially attained, Brullier sang the 
following German verses, which those about him accompanied with 
the clinking of their half empty glasses: 

“Wenn ein englisch Schiff sich 
In dem Kurs geirrt ganz schrecklich, 


FORT DE KOCK. 


47 


Bei Tenom ging auf den Strand 
Und dem Feinde in die Hand; 

Dieses, ist nicht zu ertragen. 

Was wird John Bull wohl dazu sagen? 

Drum fuer England schnell in’s Feld, 

Aber das kost’ Gfeld.” 

After the peals of laughter and applause, which greeted Brullieris 
sonorous strains, had subsided, he was asked to relate the story 
of the wreck of the Nisero and the rescue of her crew. The tall 
Austrian rapidly gulped down a few glasses of wine, in order to 
prevent his perpetual thirst from interfering with his narration, 
and then began: 

“Last December the British steamer Msero cleared the port of 
Batavia with an alleged load of ballast for England. Instead of 
passing through the Straits of Malacca, where Dutch and British 
men-of-war are constantly keeping a sharp lockout on the piratical 
'Achinese, the Hisero steamed through the Strait of Sunda and 
along the western coast of Sumatra. The captain carried on board 
a large amount of contraband, consisting of rifles and ammunition, 
which he intended to sell to Tuanku Iman Muda, the rajah of 
Tenom. Hot being supplied with reliable charts of that dangerous 
shore, his vessel was wrecked among the many cliffs near Tenom 
and soon discovered by the rajah’s men, who lost no time in secur¬ 
ing the cargo and leading away the crew into- captivity. Dutch 
cruisers soon afterwards discovered the wreck of the Hisero and 
forwarded the news to Batavia. The Dutch governor-general in¬ 
formed the British governor at Malacca of the facts and the latter 
immediately demanded that the Dutch liberate the crew of the 
Nisero from the clutches of the Achinese within a month. Other¬ 
wise, it was hinted, British forces would march into Acheen and 
either release or avenge their countrymen. The Dutch understood 
the meaning of the message which meant that England would 
occupy a portion of Sumatra if they did not live up to the articles 
of the treaty of St. James, which was concluded in 1872 and which 
bound the Dutch to keep the pirates in check. 

“Accordingly, the Dutch fitted out an expedition consisting of 
four battalions of infantry, artillery and sappers against the Rajah 
of Tenom and bombarded some of his seaboard kampongs, captur¬ 
ing large quantities of black pepper, rice, silk and other articles. In 
the meantime Tuanku Iman Muda had retired with his men into in¬ 
accessible mountain retreats, toward which the Dutch marched 
under the conduct of high-priced Achinese guides until they came 
across an empty hut, to which the Hisero’s captain had pinned a 
letter, begging in piteous terms that immediate measures be taken 
to ransom him and his crew, their only means of salvation, as the 
rajah was about to bring them to a hidden place in the mountains 


48 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


where they could never be found and rescued by force. The Dutch 
saw that a further advance would jeopardize their cause, withdrew 
their battalions and resorted to diplomacy. Tuanku Beit, a rajah 
kept in confinement on the small island of Banka near the coast of* 
♦lava was liberated on condition that he act as mediator between 
the ruler of Tenom and the Dutch. Iman Muda demanded a ran¬ 
som of $100,000 for the ship’s crew besides a large'indemnity for 
his destroyed chattels and kampongs. The government was com¬ 
pelled to grant the demands of the Malay corsair. According to the 
terms agreed upon, the money and the* prisoners were to be ex¬ 
changed in the vicinity of Bukit-Sabon, a small fort some distance 
from Tenom. 

“But the troubles of the Dutch did not end with their accedence 
to the pirate’s demands. When the chain-boys approached the 
place of ransom with large chests containing the required amount 
in Dutch paper money, the rajah refused to be paid in that kind of 
currency and demanded hard money. The Dutch officers were tan¬ 
talized when the chain-boys returned without the prisoners and 
with the bank notes untouched, as they had watched the proceed¬ 
ings through their field glasses and already given orders to load the 
field pieces and give the pirates a hot farewell greeting after the 
British crew should have been conveyed out of the reach of danger. 
There was nothing left to be done, however, but to fulfill the 
wishes of the wily and fastidious rajah. The necessary coin was 
finally secured and a long line of chain-boys, carrying on bamboo 
poles large iron chests filled with gold and silver, dispatched to the 
appointed spot. 

“The rajah did not take the time to count his ill-gotten treasure, 
but had his followers take it to a mountain fastness, after setting 
free the score of British sailors, who had to be carried to the Dutch 
camp on stretchers, as the hardships they had endured during their 
captivity among a cruel people had reduced them almost to skele¬ 
tons. As soon as they were safe wdthin the- Dutch lines, fire was 
opened upon the retreating figures of the pirates of Tenom, without, 
however, doing them any serious injury. 

“A few days later, word was brought to the camp that Tuanku 
Beit, whom the Dutch had released from the captivity in which he 
had been languishing for piracy since 1873, had attacked Tuanku 
Iman Muda with a handful of men on the night of the ransom and 
captured every dollar of the money paid over by the Dutch. Tuan¬ 
ku Beit then returned to his native kampongs in Acheen with his 
stolen treasure and again took up arms against the Dutch. The 
rescued sailors were taken to a hospital and returned to England 
as soon as their health permitted.” 

“Iman Muda must be a ferocious fellow,” Saufhaus remarked, 
after Brullier had finished his story and drank a few glasses in 
rapid succession to recuperate from the exertion. 


FORT DE KOCK. 


49 


“By no means,” Brullier answered, piquing himself on his supe¬ 
rior knowledge of men and things; “the Rajah of Tenom has re¬ 
ceived a very good education at the court of Stamboul and possesses 
all the airs of an accomplished gentleman. In fact, he is the 

‘mildest mannered man 
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat/ ” 



y; ' . 




CHAPTER VII. 


THE TITIPAPAN ESTATE. 

t a full day’s rest, a detail of five infantry com¬ 
panies, recruited from among the convalescents 
discharged from the hospital and the newly 
arrived reinforcements from Java, in full -field 
equipment, left the barracks early in the morn¬ 
ing &nd began their circuitous march to Man- 
daheling, the main center of the expeditions 
conducted against4he pirates of Acheen and the 
cannibals infesting the romantic shores of Lake 
Tobah in Upper Sumatra. The detail was com¬ 
manded by Captain van Houten and Lieutenant 
Schwarzenberg, but its general movements were 
subject to orders from a fiscal controller who 
was bound on a trip of inspection for some of the plantations lying 
along the line of march. On the preceding day, Brullier, who had 
been made a sergeant for his valiant conduct in overpowering Juro 
di Kromo, who had done such havoc while running amuck at 
Padang-Pandjang, had presented his superior officers with an invi¬ 
tation from his brother, Robert von Horn, the proprietor of one of 
the largest plantations of Menang-Kebau, requesting the pleasure 
of entertaining the entire detail on the Titipapan estate. The 
invitation was referred by the officers to the controller, Mynheer 
van Swieten, who accepted it for Jhe detail and made the fact known 
by a messenger to the planter. 

The detail, which presented the same medley of complexions and 
nationalities as the convoy, like the latter acted as escort for a long 
line of ox-carts containing supplies. The men marched in closed 
ranks, but at their ease, and the women formed the rear. Three 
light vehicles accompanied the detail. One of them contained the 
Ujonja Augusta and her mother Si-Idup; another, Si-Lida, Captain 
van Houten’s housekeeper; and the third, Si-Rambut, a Javanese 
woman of some linguistic accomplishments, who frequently acted as 
the controller’s interpreter. The controller himself rode in state 
in a carriage drawn by four horses. Next to his driver sat a native 
servant holding with both hands a large gilded umbrella, the 
emblem of his dignity in the eyes of the natives. 

Fort de Kock being situated near the watershed of the Gleh- 
Rajah, the detail traveled down hill most of the time, past giddy, 
forest-clad ravines, many hundreds of feet in depth, across wooden 
bridges spanning the irrigating channels conducting mountain 
brooks through rice-fields, which are laid out in terraces along the 
slopes, and past Malay kampongs, coffee-gardens, fruit orchards and 



!E 


THE TITIPAPAN ESTATE. 


51 


tobacco fields. Groups of palmettos, cocoanut palms and bamboo 
rose like islands out of the open spaces. The road was stony and 
dusty, but shaded by tall bamboos planted at close range along the 
sides of the road, and described a large number of small curves 
before reaching the hill-enclosed plain occupied by the Titipapan 
estate. The declination of the road was occasionally so steep that 
the highway appeared to be swallowed up by the dense masses of 
overhanging foliage. 

Mynheer von Horn, whose wink was obeyed implicitly by at least 
five hundred Javanese, Malay, Chinese and Singhalese coolies, and 
by nearly as many females, mostly Javanese and Battah, with a few 
Chinese and Japanese women, had caused all preparati6ns for a 
suitable reception of the detail, which embraced a population nearly 
equal to that of his plantation, to be made without much regard to 
expense, in view of the fact that his brother, whom he had not seen 
for many years and whom he hoped to attach to himself by offering 
to secure his release from the service, would be among the passing 
sojourners. at_his princely estate. 

When the master of Titipapan and several tobacco planters from 
Deli, who were recuperating at the neighboring health resort of 
Pa}'a-Kombo from the debilitating effects of the climate of the low¬ 
lands and who were his guests whenever they felt inclined to enjoy 
hunting wild beasts or game in the mountains, espied the detail 
drawing near the confines of the estate, they mounted their horses 
and rode forward to welcome the military at the foot of the hills. 
The planters were dressed in white linen camping suits and wore 
canvas shoes and canvas-covered cork helmets of the same color. 
The cavalcade had soon crossed the wide expanse of level land 
between the mansion and the nearest hills, along the ledges of 
which the transport was approaching, and found itself in front of 
the magnificent carriage of the controller. The planters stopped 
their horses, and the controller ordered his driver to halt, stepped 
out and approached Mynheer von Horn with his hat under his left 
arm. The planters greeted the government’s fiscal representative 
in a rather condescending manner, without dismounting. The con¬ 
troller then resumed his seat in his carriage which moved on so as 
not to block the way for the detail which by this time had come up 
to the planters. Captain van Houten commanded “Halt!” saluted 
by touching his cap with his right hand, and, in compliance with 
Mynheer von Horn’s request, ordered his lieutenant to give Ser¬ 
geant Brullier permission to leave the ranks. 

When the sergeant walked up to his brother, the latter dis¬ 
mounted and embraced him affectionately. They had not seen 
each other for fifteen years. When the elder von Horn left the gay 
capital on the Danube, to seek his fortune in Sumatra, the younger 
was still attending the military college. Both had since that time 
gone through a great variety of experiences, though of an opposite 


52 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


character, the elder having become accustomed to command, while 
the younger had become more or less of an adventurer. Seizing his 
horse by the bridle, von Horn walked at his brother’s side to the 
residence and conversed with him on private matters. 

The planter’s home was a rather stately edifice, built in the Indo- 
European style 1 , three feet from the ground, and resting on stone 
columns. The entrance to the garden surrounding it on all sides 
was arched over by immense trees, covered with bright red lianas 
as with a network of fiery garlands. Wide covered verandas sur¬ 
rounded the house on all sides. The principal decorations of the 
interior were hunting trophies, consisting of the stuffed skin of a 
huge boa constrictor, to which a wooden bell was tied, telling the 
sad story of a full-grown goat which was swallowed whole by the 
reptile; of elephants’ skulls, tiger skins, rhinoceros’ feet made up 
into cigar stands, wild bulls’ horns, boar tusks and deer’s horns, all 
recalling the time when Titipapan, which means Wooden Bridge, 
was part of the primeval forest. 

The estate covered an area, of nearly 6,000 acres. The large 
water-wheel, which drove all the machinery on the estate, was 
moved by a selokkan, or water-course, led between high dykes from 
the slopes of the forest-clad mountains. The natives have thor¬ 
oughly mastered the difficulties of machinery, pulleys, belts and 
saws, and made all the packing cases on the premises from trees 
felled in the neighborhood. 

Back of the planter’s mansion stretched several long rows of 
bamboo houses, each surrounded by a small garden, the homes of 
the coolies employed on the plantation. Further away were several 
large tobacco sheds, each about five hundred feet in length and 
from one to two hundred feet in width, which had been fitted up 
for the reception of the soldiers and their wives. 

The chief products of the plantation were cinnamon, tea, coffee, 
tobacco and rice. A coffee-garden is a peculiarly fine sight in har¬ 
vest time, the crop being gathered exclusively by young Javanese 
girls. Herds of cattle were seen grazing on the hill-sides. The 
entire estate, being laid out on a grand scale, made a majestic im¬ 
pression, heightened by the magnificent panorama of tall mouii- 
tains, clad in evergreen foliage, rearing their crests about it in all 
directions. 

When the shades of night from the verdant mountains began to 
lengthen across the plain and the deep blue sky assumed darker 
tinges, the soldiers and their wives squatted down to a sumptuous 
feast spread out on improvised tables in one of the big tobacco 
sheds and enjoyed it as a pleasing interruption of their monotonous 
military diet. The officers, who were quartered in the commodious 
manor, filed into the large dining-room at sunset. A huge fan in 
the shape of a mat was suspended from the ceiling and kept in 
continual motion by means of a cord attached to the middle of it 


THE TITIPAPAN ESTATE. 


53 


and pulled by a Javanese lad on the outside of the house, thus pro¬ 
ducing currents of fresh air. The-controller occupied the seat of 
honor next to the host, and the others were grouped according to 
their rank. The dinner consisted of four courses, comprising turtle 
soup, brook trout, roast' beef and antelope steak, and including 
rice in many forms of preparation, fruits, vegetables, sauces and 
ices. When the cigars were passed around and the champagne 
glasses filled, Mynheer von Horn arose and brought out a toast on 
the health of the King of Holland and the prosperity of the 'Colo¬ 
nial government, under whose wise and just rule the planters found 
themselves in a prosperous condition and were proud to welcome the 
representatives of the government to their holdings. The 'planter’s 
brief and emphatic remarks were roundly applauded by his guests. 
Controller van Swieten considered it his duty to respond and said 
that the patriotism of Mynheer von Horn and his generous hos¬ 
pitality towards the men who were to risk their lives in opening 
up new fields for commerce', agriculture and industry in pirate and 
cannibal haunts, were duly appreciated. The captain and the 
lieutenant thanked their host on behalf of themselves and of their 
men for the kind provisions made for their entertainment, and 
assured him that he would ever be held in grateful remembrance 
by his guests. After some complimentary allusion by the officers to 
Brullier’s bravery in securing the amuck-maker at Padang-Pand- 
jang, the party arose from their seats and made themselves com¬ 
fortable on the broad verandas lining the luxuriant garden which 
displayed a gaudy variety of tropical and sub-tropical flowers and 
shrubs. 

Towards eight o’clock all the soldiers and coolies and their wives 
and children gathered in the biggest of the tobacco sheds, where 
a small wooden stage had been improvised at one end, to witness a 
Javanese play performed by some of the more intelligent of the 
native soldiers and by a quartette of pretty and graceful dancers 
selected- from among the maidens attending to the coffee-gardens. 
The planter and his guests and the members of his household 
occupied the seats of honor close to the stage. The gamelan, or 
orchestra, included about twenty Javanese who performed on a 
variety of instruments. Kromo Wonzo, whose gambling proclivities 
had by no means dulled his love for the most queenly of arts, acted 
as bandmaster and played a re'bab, or two-stringed violin. Other 
instruments were the sooling, a kind of bamboo whistle, the gam- 
bang, a kind of xylophone, brass and silver sarons similar to the 
g&.mbang, kettle-shaped bonangs, big gongs, some small and one 
large drum. 

The plot of the play performed, Damar Woolan, was a rather 
tangled-up affair and. treated of a king wishing to give his daughter 
in marriage to a certain prince, on condition that he accomplish 
several extraordinary feats. The prince failed to procure the'tro- 


/ 


54 EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 

phies demanded by the king and is displaced by a prince of a hostile 
dynasty. In the meantime the princess was stolen by a giant who 
is attacked and killed by the successful prince. The first prince is 
furious and provokes his successful rival, but the latter comes out 
victorious. The marriage of the victor and the king’s daughter 
concluded the play. 

The planter and his chosen guests, who attended the performance 
for the sake of policy only and not on account of any predilection 
for what European taste would consider unmelodious music and 
primeval theatricals, retired early in the evening through a sicle 
entrance into the open and strolled into the parlor of von Horn’s 
residence, where Brullier and others catered to their more refined 
perceptions by rendering on the piano selections from Suppe and 
Strauss. Some Japanese girls, who were employed as domestics 
about the house, and the njonjas of the officers, joined the men in 
some very lively quadrilles. The mansion had' been profusely deco¬ 
rated with Chinese and Japanese colored lanterns of fantastic 
shapes, and appeared from the distance like an abode of hamadryads 
flitting about to the accompaniment of weird music and to the 
illumination of fire-belching dragons. Refreshments were partaken 
of freely and when the snowy horn of the moon rose towards mid¬ 
night above the dark hills hiding from view Paya-Kombo on the 
east, the dances assumed the form of a wild medley, in which the 
intoxicating breath of the tropics imparted additional lustre to the 
eyes of the dancers and their frames quivered with the passions 
beseeming a torrid clime. 

After the guests had retired, von Horn urgently pressed his 
brother to accept his offer to purchase his release from the army 
and to associate himself with him in managing the plantation, but 
Brullier, who had the image of Si-Wardi before his mind and was 
in a restless mood of mind, declined to entertain any such proposi- 
tions ; and informed his brother that he preferred to seek forgetful¬ 
ness in the more checkered career of a soldier. With a sigh von 
Horn desisted from further solicitations and retired. 






CHAPTER VIII. 



HISTORY OF THE SUMATRA WRAPPER. 

N the following morning Mynheer von Horn accom¬ 
panied Controller van Swieten on an inspection 
tour about the estate for the purpose of ascertain¬ 
ing the amount of taxes to be paid on the year’s 
crop, while Captain van Houten and Lieutenant 
Sehwarzenberg enjoyed a carriage drive with their 
ladies in the romantic vicinity. Sergeant Brullier 
remained ah the house and entertained the two 
visiting planters from Deli, Messrs. Werschier and 
Bamberg, the former a Dutchman, the latter a 
German. Seated on cosy reclining chairs placed 
against the shady side of the building, they en¬ 
joyed the cool morning breeze while puffing away 
at fragrant Manila cigars, of which their host al¬ 
ways kept a plentiful supply on hand. Brullier entertained the two 
visitors from the other side of Sumatra with stories of his adven¬ 
tures and of his changing his name. After a while the conversation 
drifted to the planters’ favorite subject, tobacco, and Werschier, 
who owned one of the largest tobacco plantations of Deli, satisfied 
Brullier’s curiosity with the following sketch of the development of 
that district: 

“In the sixties the Dutch ascertained through experts that the 
land subject to the Sultan of Deli was eminently adapted for the 
raising of tobacco. They lost no time in concluding an advantage¬ 
ous bargain with his highness, whereby he agreed to permit his 
entire territory to be opened up for cultivation, in consideration of 
the price realized from the sale of lands. Many German, American, 
English, Austrian and other capitalists hurried to invest their 
money in what was considered a very paying and conservative invest¬ 
ment, and a colony of tobacco-growers soon sprang up in Deli. The 
Dutch flag floated above Belawan, the port of entry, but all kinds of 
money were in circulation. Dutch silver coins were scarce, but 
there was no lack of Mexican,-American and Spanish dollars, Jap¬ 
anese yen, Chinese taels and other coins. Plantations soon sprang 
up like mushrooms after the rain, in spite of the great difficulties 
encountered in the shape of trackless virgin forests which had to 
be cleared away with fire, dynamite and the ax. Twenty men 
holding each other by the hand would not have been able to span 
some of the ancient trees. The first crops proved so satisfactory, 
however, that there was a constant influx of investors. The only 


56 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


difficulty remaining was the obtaining of competent labor. The 
Javanese and Malays , not taking a liking to the rather severe task 
of clearing away forests, the Dutch government made an agreement 
with China, empowering the former to employ an agent to recruit 
laborers among the coolies of Tonquin. The latter received a 
bounty of eighty dollars upon their arrival at Deli and were pledged 
to serve for three years. The Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij was next 
formed with President Herkenrath at the head for the purpose of 
building narrow-gauge lines of railway to connect the various 
plantations with the harbor. In a few years _about .five hundred 
miles of road were built, connecting the terminal stations of Bela- 
wan, Medan, Timbang-Langkat, Silese, Perbauungan and. Deli 
Tuwa. 

“The planters on the start turned over their products to a com¬ 
missary residing in Labuan and rapidly became wealthy. If one 
considers that the Deli tobacco is used merely for cigar wrappers, it 
is difficult to understand how such immense quantities as are raised 
in the district could be disposed of. And yet annually new planta¬ 
tions are started, without influencing the high price paid for the 
article, proving its choiceness, the enormous quantity consumed and 
the excess of the demand over the supply. 

“The soil of Deli is devoted almost exclusively to the raising of 
tobacco. Even after forest and underbrush have been cleared away 
with fire and sword, the planters are compelled to keep up a con¬ 
tinual warfare against the encroachments of nature which strives to 
cover every inch of ground with a robe of verdure and does so with 
alarming rapidity. After one or two crops have been harvested, a 
patch is permitted to lie idle for eight or ten years to permit the 
soil to recover the ingredients essential for the best grades of 
tobacco. The adjoining patch, where the land has been previously 
cleared, is then cultivated, and so on patch after patch is cleared 
and cultivated for a year or two at the time until, after the lapse 
of eight or ten Years, the original tract is again tilled. During the 
years in which no tobacco is raised on the cleared lands, the sub¬ 
jects of the sultan are permitted to sow them with red rice, which 
does not require irrigation and'the cultivation of which by the 
natives saves the planters the trouble of keeping their fields free 
from the rapid growth of new vegetation. 

“In order to obtain as large and uniform leaves as possible, the 
plant is clipped at the top when blossoming, in order that the sap 
intended for the seeds may be diverted to the large leaves at the 
base. When ripe, the plants are cut off at the base and hung up in 
bunches of ten in a shed to wither. The leaves are then plucked 
and gathered into small bunches and these again piled up into a 
cube about ten feet each way and allowed to ferment and dry, that 
is, to go through the natural process of fermentation which gives 
them their fine brown color and lustre under the influence of a 


HISTORY OF THE SUMATRA WRAPPER. 


57 


considerable degree of heat. After the leaves have been thoroughly 
cured, they are assorted according to size and color, the latter vary¬ 
ing from the lightest yellowish brown to the deepest black-brown. 
All the work is done by Chinese coolies who exhibit a wonderful 
degree of patience and skill. Each coolie has charge of about four 
thousand tobacco plants and is paid according to the quantity of the 
finished product turned out by him. The spots on the leaves are 
formed by dew drops in the same manner in which a human being 
gets sunburned. Leaves with small freckles bring the highest 
price in the market.” 

“What sort of fellow is your Sultan of Deli?” Brullier asked. 

Bamberg, who was personally acquainted with his majesty, re¬ 
plied: “In the first place, Mohammed AsharFs full name is too 
long to burden the memory with. Although only thirty-five years 
of age, he looks like a man of sixty. He resides in a wooden palace 
on a small island called Pooloo-Brian, lying in the delta of the Deli 
river. The most remarkable circumstance connected with the man 
is his harem, which shelters some fifty of the finest sweet sixteen 
beauties to be found on Sumatra. The railroad company has pre¬ 
sented him with a palace car which is frequently switched from the 
side-track near his island to the nearest station and attached to a 
train conveying him and’ his seraglio to one of the mountain resorts 
in the vicinity of Deli Tuwa or Serdang. He is excessively fond 
of wealth and has literally sold out his country to the planters, 
whereby he has served his own ends in a very shrewd manner. He 
stands under the protection of the Dutch government, but is at 
liberty to do as he pleases with his native subjects, as long as he 
does not violate the rights of planters and of Europeans residing 
in his district. He considers nearly all means of obtaining money 
justifiable. It is reported that some years ago he was in league 
with a band of counterfeiters, mostly runaway Chinese coolies, who 
set up in the mountains among the Kora Battahs an establishment 
to reproduce the coin of the realm as well as to carry on a profitable 
illicit traffic in opium. The casuistry of his hadji counselors res¬ 
cued him from the judicial claws of the Dutch lion. Otherwise, 
he retains but a mere shadow of real power, and therefore has taken 
the precaution to hoard up a vast amount of wealth, which would 
enable him to cross the Straits of Malacca and live at ease at Sing¬ 
apore whenever he should find things becoming too hot for him in 
his ancestral realm.” 

The Chinese coolies, who perform all the work on the tobacco 
plantations, are in a cruel dilemma on the start, because they can¬ 
not very well understand their overseers who speak Malay. They 
are frequently severely flogged upon the slightest provocation, and 
when they attempt to escape they find themselves “between the 
devil and the deep sea,” not only because the planters pay a reward 
of fifty guilders for the capture of an escaped coolie, but because 


58 EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 

they really have no place of safety to fly to. The fugitives gener¬ 
ally betake themselves to the mountains, where they tramp from 
place to place until they reach the settlements of the cannibal Bat¬ 
tahs, who butcher and eat them. In spite of the horrible fate sure 
to he encountered by a fugitive in whatsoever direction he turns 
his trembling steps, "escapes are a common occurrence, causing to 
nearly every plantation an annual loss of from $2,000 to $4,000, 
the amount of the bounties paid the coolies. On the plantation of 
Timbang-Langkat an assistant was one day buried alive, with only 
his head projecting above the ground, by the irate coolies whom 
he had punished with great cruelty for any remissness in their work, 
and several of whom he had shot dead when they attacked him. 

The assistants on the tobacco plantations are mostly young men 
of good family, who have taken a fancy to a planter’s life and are 
possessed of a love for adventure strong enough to face the murder¬ 
ous climate of the lowlands of Sumatra. But as not all of them, 
upon their arrival in Deli, are sufficiently acclimated or conversant 
with the Malay language, the planters employ many sinjos from 
Batavia, who are experts at handling the coolies. The latter are 
slaves in all save the name. A flourishing business is carried on 
by dealers in human flesh, who import young Japanese girls to 
act as housekeepers for the managers and their assistants on the 
plantations. 

“What are the so-called arson-letters sent by the Battahs?” Brul- 
lier inquired; “I have heard of them, but was never able to thor¬ 
oughly comprehend their significance.” 

“We are in receipt of such letters occasionally,” Wersehier re¬ 
plied, “and the cause of their being sent is generally about as fol¬ 
lows. The Battahs are skillful carpenters and are frequently em¬ 
ployed on the plantations to put up bamboo houses and sheds, 
which they accomplish without using a single nail or other piece 
of metal in fastening the joints and beams. On account of the 
difficulty encountered by employer and employe in understanding 
each other’s dialect, the Battah craftsmen frequently feel them¬ 
selves aggrieved, dispatch so-called arson-letters, and, if no atten¬ 
tion is paid the latter, the sheds and supplies of the addressee are 
liable fo be set ablaze at night. Foreigners generally mistake for 
an act of hatred and revenge what the Battahs consider as a mere 
act of justice. 

“An arson-letter is written in the Battah language upon a small 
bamboo leaf which is fastened to the house of the one who, in 
their eyes, has been guilty of a transgression of the universal princi¬ 
ples of right, or is supposed to be responsible for the damage done. 
The complaint is stated and satisfaction demanded, the latter con¬ 
sisting either in bringing a murdered relative back to life or in the 
payment of damages. In the former case, it is the payment of 


HISTORY OF THE SUMATRA WRAPPER, 


59 


blood money, and in the latter, restitution in natura or in its equiv¬ 
alent, that is asked. 

“Three threatening letters are sent altogether. The first and 
second for the opening of negotiations to settle the difficulty, which 
is indicated by a bit of gambir, a composition pressed into little 
cakes and used for the coloring of tobacco, being attached to the 
letters. The planters generally do not know this, and therefore 
allow the favorable opportunity, in which the entire difficulty could 
be settled by the payment of a trifling sum, to pass by. As there 
are no courts of justice in Deli, before which the Battahs could 
bring their grievances, this is the only way in which they can 
obtain redress. These letters, consequently, are an excusable 
method of self-help on part of the natives. The third and final 
epistle contains the threat proper and is attached to a small assort¬ 
ment of miniature bamboo weapons, indicative of the outbreak 
of hostilities on part of the petitioner. The following is a fair 
sample of the wording of an arson-letter: 

“ ‘This letter do I hang up, says Si-Kalong. Rice-price'not given 
me. The Tandil Assam Si-Straaten asked to do so by us. He has 
called our mother bad names, and still our price, a chicken, is 
not paid. If rice-price, which we, the insulted, demand, is not 
paid by the Tandil Assam, who, while they hre passing, also 
touched and deceived Battah girls, and if he is not discharged, I 
burn down houses and murder men. My home floats in the moun¬ 
tains. My name is Flying-Fox. My father is the Tiger in the 
rembu. He, whose heart is aggrieved/ 

“In the highlands the arson-letters are also frequently employed 
when the chief of the tribe to which the writer belongs, refuses 
to hear the complaint, or when, according to the notion of the 
writer, the chief has decided the case in bad faith against him. The 
letter is then hung up at the house of the accused, but from that 
moment the writer becomes outlawed and is compelled to seek 
safety from another chief.” 




CHAPTER IX. 


THROUGH REMBU AND ALANG-ALANG. 



FTEK an enjoyable sojourn for two nights and a 
day on the Titipapan estate, the detail resumed 
its march to Mandaheling with the knowledge that 
many hardships and few delights were before them. 
The road, which could be called such only by a 
euphuism, led through the rembu, as the pathless 
wilderness of forest in Sumatra is called, alternat¬ 
ing with areas covered by alang-alang, a kind of 
grass growing to a man’s height, which, in spite of 
its fresh, light green color, burns like paper when 
the torch is applied to it, along the eastern slopes of 
the broad and disrupted mountain chain extending through the 
entire length of the island. From Paya-Kombo, a health resort 
a short distance beyond the Titipapan estate, to Manjiadeling, the 
general line of march was in a northerly direction, with mountains 
to the left and swamps to the right. Like an oasis in a desert, an 
occasional Malay kampong rose above a clearing on hilly ground. 
At intervals of from twenty to thirty miles, there were kadoos or 
rest-stations, built by the government for the convenience of the 
troops while marching from place to place, but mostly too small 
to accommodate more than one company of soldiers and their ret¬ 
inue. The kadoo was in charge of a mandoor who saw to it thait 
fresh water was on hand and that the building was kept intact. 
The stations between Paya-Kombo and the outskirts of the Battah 
lands were rather primitive affairs, being little better than tumble- 
down log cabins, the roofs of which had to be repaired after every 
shower. For a short distance beyond Paya-Kombo the road was 
fairly good, but even before the first kadoo was reached, the soldiers 
got a foretaste of what they had to expect further on. The road 
gradually receded froip its mountain course and crept along the 
foot-hills and along occasional precipices bordering on the impene¬ 
trable morasses covered with a dense growth of trees and under¬ 
brush. 

The men as well as women stood in need of the extra strength 
gathered during their brief stay at the hospitable plantation, for 
the path frequently disappeared in mudholes, in which the ox¬ 
carts got stuck or toppled over and had to be rescued by the united 
exertions of all the men, even the captain and lieutenant putting 
their shoulders to the wheel. The van of the detail made use of 


(60) 


THROUGH REMBU AND ALANG-ALANG. 


61 


their cape knives to cut away overhanging 'branches which en¬ 
dangered the safety of the shade-roofs of the grobacs. The cross¬ 
ing of bridges spanning mountain brooks tearing along at the 
bottom of deep gulches was particularly dangerous* because the 
timbers rot very rapidly and none can foretell how soon the hollow 
trunk of a tree may give- way and precipitate team and driver into 
the yawning chasm, from which there is no hope of rescue for 
the man, even if he should land alive, which is utterly improbable. 

While trudging along under a sultry, cloudless sky, the men 
were plagued by the endless difficulties arising from a scarcely 
discernible road leading alternately over steep hills, through 
forests where the rapid growth of vegetation had produced new ob¬ 
stacles, and over swampy patches constantly inundated by 'the rain 
water flowing from the mountains. / 

When, after completing a day’s journey, a, kadoo was reached 
towards night, the caravansary generally proved insufficient to 
accommodate the whole detail and was therefore surrendered to 
the women and children. The soldiers in such events contented 
themselfes with sleeping under improvised atap sheds, open on 
all sides and covered with a thatched roof of palm-leaves, which 
were constructed by the Javanese soldiers in an incredibly short 
space of time. Neither nails nor hammers are employed in the 
construction of these sheds, which consist of only four bamboo 
poles supporting a slanting roof. All joining and fastening is 
done by means of rattan strings. A bright campfire is then built 
near the sheds to keep away tigers and other wild beasts with 
which those regions) abound. The officers shared the quarters of 
their men, while the njonjas stopped at the residence of the nearest 
controller in the district. 

For ten weary, hot days the detail wound its way between moun¬ 
tain and swamp. The isolated Malay kampongs were hailed with 
joy, although they offered no advantages except the liberty to pur¬ 
chase refreshments at extortionate prices. The swamps emitted 
fever-creating miasma which made their presence known by an 
evil odor, causing nausea and by the nightly chorus of vast armies 
of bull-frogs, called kodak-sapi by the Malays, mingled with the 
occasional roar of a tiger, the buzzing of countless swarms of insects 
and the parrot-like utterances of the lizards in the hollow bamboo 
posts. 

A primeval tropical forest presents a view of nature in her orig¬ 
inal wildness and luxuriance. Climbing plants and lianas spread 
from branch to branch displaying a great variety of blossoms, forms 
and colors. Offshoots of the big trees, with roots suspended in the 
air, seek the moist and soft soil to lay the foundation of a new 
tree. The decaying trunks of fallen forest giants are overgrown 
with dense clusters of shade-plants developing luxuriantly in the 
rank atmosphere. The rembu is the home of about fifty varieties 


62 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


of snakes, of which about one-third is poisonous, but very timid, 
never attacking man unless provoked. The bird world is repre¬ 
sented by a few varieties of doves, swallows, quail, cuckoos, snipes, 
woodpeckers, parrots and rhinoceros-birds. Bugs and butterflies 
are found in abundance. 

The larger of the wild beasts infesting Sumatra are the elephant, 
the tiger and the rhinoceros. The dense vegetation shields from 
the hunter’s aim the tiger, who, when hungry or dissatisfied with the 
prey offered by the rembu, sometimes approaches the confines of 
a plantation or village', and carries off coolies who are unarmed and 
not on their guard. The elephants wander in herds throughout 
the wjiole length of the island, but prefer the wide plains of the 
southern provinces. 

In one of the larger kampongs passed through by the detail a 
passar, or market, was held, where the products of the country were 
exchanged for foreign articles. Thus, rice, maize, leguminous 
fruits, jams, brown palm-sugar, palm-wine, tobacco, betel, blue 
cloth, wooden combs, bamboo or bone cases for sirih, were traded 
off for salt, English linen, Swedish matches, American kerosene, 
tin cans, and head-wraps of Swiss manufacture. Women and 
girls formed a majority of the buyers and sellers. The women 
carried their naked babies in slendangs, or large shawls, which were 
wrapped about their bodies and shoulders. The girls were very 
clean and neat, and the slight flush of red peering through their 
brown complexions frequently gave them a very pretty appearance. 

The Malays of Sumatra.are, with the exception of some tribes, 
such as the Battahs and Achinese, indolent, shiftless and peaceful, 
fond of cock-fights and gambling, and compel the women to do 
all the work in the household and in the fields. They are fanatical 
Mohammedans and buy as many wives as their purse will permit. 
They are rarely employed except for lighter kinds of labor, such 
as teaming, butchering and herding cattle. The work on the 
plantations is done mainly by Chinese and Javanese coolies. 

The road on which the detail traveled was originally a Malay 
trail, oh which in 1825, shortly after England had ceded to Holland 
Sumatra, Java and the Molucca. Islands in exchange for Ceylon 
and the South African colonies, the Tuankus of Menang-Kebau 
and of Bau led their fanatical hordes of Padries, a Mohammedan 
sect powerful in the highlands of Padang, against the Battahs, 
whom they sought to convert with fire and sword from heathenism 
and cannibalism to the faith of the prophet. After destroying 
hundreds of kampongs and slaughtering thousands of the inhab¬ 
itants, they succeeded in subjugating what are now known as the 
half-civilized Battahs inhabiting the country south of Lake Tobah. 
When the Malay forces of the two tuankus approached Lake Tobah, 
however, they were met with such stubborn resistance that they 
were compelled to retreat with considerable loss. 


THROUGH REMBU AND ALANG-ALANG. 


63 


The Dutch, dreading the ascendancy of a fanatical sect, took 
away all power from the native rulers. Colonel Michiels, who was 
made governor of the west coast of Sumatra in 1837, desired to 
conquer the lands of the cannibal Battahs about Lake Tobah, but 
was unable to begin operations for lack of men and means. In 
1873, the outrages perpetrated by the pirates of the straits upon 
vessels sailing under the British and other flags compelled the 
Dutch to make a determined effort to reduce the Achinese to sub¬ 
jection. Until the present day a ceaseless guerilla warfare has 
been in progress between the Achinese and the Dutch in the north¬ 
ern part of Sumatra without many positive results being achieved. 
Whenever and wherever the Dutch appear with a superior force, 
the Achinese will retreat, avoiding pitched battles and relying for 
safety on their intimate knowledge of the country. The Dutch 
have destroyed any number of Achinese villages, but have failed 
to compel obedience from any of the natives except isolated in¬ 
dividuals near the coast towns. It is impossible to locate with any 
degree of exactness the boundaries of the Achinese territory, as 
the natives roam about like robbers in small bands under the 
leadership of their chiefs and when close pressed, betake themselves 
with their families and cattle into inaccessible mountain retreats, 
where they will subsist for an indefinite length of time on rice 
and salt. The natives are by no means at harmony with each 
other. When they are not on the warpath against the Dutch, 
they are frequently fighting among themselves. Thus, when one 
gang has returned loaded with plunder from a successful attack 
upon a ship, another gang will seek to rob the first. Although the 
Achinese population is less than half a million and their country 
has been dotted with a network of military posts by the Dutch, 
the latter have, during the past quarter of a century, sacrificed 
more than one hundred million dollars and the lives of one hun¬ 
dred thousand white and double that number of native soldiers in 
their attempt to subjugate one of the fiercest tribes in existence. 
The Dutch at an early date became aware of the difficulties attend¬ 
ing their projects upon Acheen and came toUook upon the costly 
enterprise as a bottomless pit devouring all the wealth ground out 
of Java, the “fresh-milking cow.” In 1880, General van der Heide 
wrote to his government: “I have conquered the land, but not 
the people.” It is safe to assume that if the natives were supplied 
with adequate artillery, they would make short work of the Dutch 
and drive them out of their country as speedily as they did the 
Portuguese in olden times—in a single night. 

The purpose of the detail now on its way to Mandaheling was 
to reinforce the troops holding in check Tuanku Abu, an Achinese 
leader, and his ally, Tibung, a pang-ulu of the Korah Battahs. 
Tibung one day suggested to a Dutch controller that the latter’s 
government furnish him with two hundred rifles, with which he 


64 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 



proposed to arm his men and to help the Dutch in their warfare 
against the Aehinese. The controller obtained the consent of his 
government to deliver the required arms and ammunition to the 
wily Battah chieftain who kept his word and carried on a lively 
campaign against Tuanku Abu, whose men were eaten when cap¬ 
tured. After several successes on the part of Pang-Ulu Tibang 
against the Aehinese, the former made other demands, which were 
acceded to, but never fulfilled, by the Dutch, because, in the mean¬ 
time, Tuanku Abu had approached the Dutch in a diplomatic man¬ 
ner, offering to cease battling against them and to turn his arms 
against the Battahs, provided he was allowed to supply himself 
with two boatloads of ammunition from Singapore. The Dutch, 
in the hope of conquering the Battah country with Tuanku Abu’s 
help, allowed him to supply himself with the sinews of war from 
the coast, and to proceed against Pang-Ulu Tibang. Instead of 
fighting the cannibal chief, however, Tuanku Abu concluded an 
offensive and defensive treaty against the Dutch with him. The 
garrisons of the forts in the vicinity of Lake Tobah were disagree¬ 
ably surprised when they had to face the attacks of Aehinese and 
of the Battahs at the same time. 

The night preceding the arrival of the detail at its destination 
the men as well as the women had a disagreeable time of it. The 

day was fast declining and 
a kadoo was still some dis¬ 
tance off, when a heavy 
shower set in, drenching all 
to the skin, before atap 
sheds could be improvised. 
Shielding themselves as well 
as possible from the torrents 
pouring down from the 
dark, riftless cloud over¬ 
spreading the whole heav¬ 
ens, they waited patiently 
for the cessation of the rain. 
The task of reaching the 
kadoo before utter darkness 
set in was an arduous one. 
The depressions formed by 
the road when winding 
through the intervals be¬ 
tween two hills were covered 
with mud and water, from 
which the oxen alone were 
unable to extricate the carts, 
had to exert all their strength to get the vehicles 
.on higher and drier ground. In marching over the inundated por- 



THROUGH REMBU AND ALANG-ALANG. 


65 


tions of the road the women frequently sank knee-deep into the 
mire. The Amboinese women especially, who are very fastidious 
about their personal appearance, frequently lost all patience, when 
the mud spattered all over their pretty sarongs and jackets. 
Hungry, tired and thirsty, the detail at last reached the kadoo, 
which, however, was in a deplorable condition, the rain having 
made holes in the weather-worn roof and formed pools of water in 
the interior. The little cooking required to satisfy the wants of 
the natives was done on large field stones hastily gathered together, 
their clothing was washed and hung up to dry, camp fires were lit, 
sentinels armed to the teeth placed around the encampment^ and 
all not on guard duty gave themselves up to sleep. The fatigues 
of the trip had taken away from Kromo Wonzo all desire to insti¬ 
tute games of chance. 

On the morning of the last day’s march the sun rose above a 
cloudless sky, and the men skirmished about early in search of 
game for breakfast, the meat portion of which consisted of hogs, 
dogs and frogs. The Amboinese captured some wild dogs, which 
are very plentiful in Sumatra; the whites shot a wild hog and the 
Javanese captured scores of large bull-frogs. The bow-wows, the 
grunters and the croakers, were rapidly dressed for roasting and 
eaten with much relish by the hungry travellers. Brullier, who 
had bought a trained monkey at Fort de Kock, sent the latter 
up the tall cocoanut palms for the purpose of throwing down the 
fruits of that noble tree. The monkey, nicknamed Meester Kees 
by the Dutch, was fastened to a chain around his body and climbed 
up the tree with great rapidity. When he had reached the leafy 
crest of the palm, and squatted himself comfortably on one of the 
branches, the monkey cautiously took hold of a nut with both 
hands and shook it and balanced it carefully as if to test its vir¬ 
tues. If he found the fruit to be unripe, he would gaze down on 
his master with a grin and make for the next nut, which he tested 
in the same manner and threw down after twisting it off its stem, 
provided it was ripe. 

Late in the afternoon, the bastions of Mandaheling rose to view 
and were hailed with joy by the detail as the end of an exceedingly 
unpleasant journey through a wild country, devoid of all charms 
even for the unpretentious natives. 



CHAPTER X. 


A MILITARY CHESS-BOARD. , 

HROUGH the hostile portion of Sumatra, ex¬ 
tending from the harbor of Oleh-Leh on the 
northwestern extremity to the southern shores 
of Lake Tobah, the Dutch have built, during 
the past twenty years, a network of forts, which 
are situated as near as possible to the centers 
of the various mokitns, or counties, into which 
the northern half of the island is subdivided. 
The most important chain of forts extends from 
Oleh-Leh to Indrapuri along either side of the 
Acheen river, which arises in the mountains 
near the western coast and winds its way through 
the swamps flanked by the Gleh-Rajah on the 
west and low Mils on the east. The strongest' and most important 
fortress and base of operations and supplies is Kota-Rajah, “The 
Royal City,” which is situated about ten miles southeast of Oleh- 
Leh. At intervals of a day’s march, in nearly a straight line, are 
the forts of Lembaru, Anak-Galooeng, Samagani, Tjot-Basetool, 
Gleh-Kambing, Djerrier and Indrapuri. The last named fort lies 
between the Gleh-Rajah on the west and the Krintjes mountains 
on the south and the Achinese kampongs of Selimon and Muru, 
the residence of the sultan of Acheen, on the east. South of Ind¬ 
rapuri and due west of Lake Tobah are the forts of Simpanoli and 
Mandaheling. West of a line, the terminal points of which are 
Lembaru and Tjoy-Basetool, is a chain of forts including Lepong- 
Ara, Krong-Rawa, Bookit-Sabon and Tjot-Gue. Along the Straits 
of Malacca, through the country of the Pedirese, who are the 
darkest-hued of the Achinese tribes, and are known as pirates 
by excellence, extends a third chain of forts, beginning with Edi, 
some distance north of Deli, and including Lampermi, Sagli, Teluk- 
Semawi and Samalanga. About half way between the Acheen river 
.and the Straits of Malacca is a chain of forts comprising Sinalope, 
Montassi-West, and Pantekarang. All these forts are manned, 
according to their strategic importance, by garrisons varying in 
strength all the way from a company to one or more battalions. 

Kota-Rajah is the seat of the governor of Acheen and was chosen 
by the Dutch as their headquarters not alone on account of its 
natural advantages, but more especially on account of the prestige 
the possession of that place gave them in the eyes of the natives, 
it being the burial-place of their sultans and therefore considered 




A MILITARY CHESS-BOARD. 


67 


by them a city more sacred to them than Mecca itself. In the 
center of the city is situated the K rat on, or the fortress proper, 
which covers about a square mile and is surrounded by a stone wall 
eighteen inches thick and ten feet high. It contains teakwood bar¬ 
racks, the governor’s residence and the burial ground of the Achi- 
nese sultans. The latter is marked by a small elevation in one 
corner of the fortress. The graves of the sultans and of their 
wives and children are designated by small white sandstone monu¬ 
ments of pyramidal shape, bearing inscriptions noting the names, 
dates of birth and death and reign of the various sovereigns. 

The Acheen river flows directly underneath the walls of the 
Kraton, where it is narrowed by sluices to check its course and 
produce a higher stage of water in the dry season to prevent the 
exhalation of noxious miasma. Within a radius of about five miles 
from the fortress the ground is hard, dry and cleared of vegetation 
with the exception of necessary shade-trees. 

Kota-Rajah is divided into a number of large kampongs, peo¬ 
pled by soldiers, Malay, Javanese and Chinese traders. Close to 
the passar, or market-place, is a big missigit, or Mohammedan 
mosque, built by the Dutch at a cost of one million guilders in 
order to cater to the religious tastes of the pious Achinese Moslem 
in the vicinity. It is a stately edifice and none except Achinese 
are allowed to cross its threshold. From a big tamarind tree near 
the cemetery of the sultans is still suspended a large bell with a 
Portuguese inscription. The rust of three centuries has eaten a 
big hole into the bell, which is supposed to have been taken from 
a Portuguese vessel by the navy of Iskander Muda, who ruled over 
Acheen from 1606 to 1636 and possessed an immense pirate fleet. 

Indrapuri is a small fort built by the Portuguese under Vasco 
de Gama. It consists of a stone wall four feet in diameter and ten 
feet high and encloses a space sufficiently large to shelter fifty men. 
Indrapuri is one of the most ancient European structures in the 
East Indies. 

Mandaheling is a fort situated on one of the tributaries of the 
Acheen river in the broad valley lying between the Gleh-Rajah and 
the Krintjes mountains, about forty miles west of the southern 
shore of Lake Tobah. It has a permanent garrison of about three 
hundred men, representing all shades of East Indian mercenaries, 
and occupies an area of about three acres. The fort contains five 
barracks built ol palm-logs, with atap roofs, the officers’ quarters, 
a big canteen, the residence of the local controller, and a number 
of smaller structures used for various purposes. There are two 
entrances, one at the north and one at the south. In each of two 
diagonally opposite corners is a bastion, which is made of sandbags 
held in place by iron rods driven through them perpendicularly 
and secured at the top by horizontal bars. On each bastion a big 
gun with a semicircular sweep looks threateningly upon the sur- 


i 

t 


EIGHT YEAES AMONG THE MALAYS. 


rounding country. From the center of the fort two mortars are 
always ready to pour a shower of grape and canister upon the foe 
stealing his way through the neighboring forests. 

/ The fort is encircled by a palm-log fence ten. feet high and sup¬ 
plied with loop-hales for the rifles. The fence again is shielded 
from approach by a network of barbed wire fencing four feet high 
and twenty feet in width, and by four rows of the thorniest variety 
of cactuses. As a supplementary precaution, the ground covered 
by the barbed wire fencing and the cactuses is thickly strewn with 
broken bottles, thus rendering an assault a hazardous undertaking 
for the naked limbs of the Achinese and Battahs. The soldiers, 
accordingly, considered drinkihg a patriotic duty, because every 
bottle, as soon as emptied, was cast among the cactuses, where every 
fragment of glass increased the security of the garrison. 

The stream flowing past the fort has no specific name and is 
simply called Kali, the river. In the rainy season its waters rise 
considerably and frequently overflow the sandy banks. In the dry 
season-the current is slow and the low stage of the water-exposes 
a portion of the sandy bottom, in w T hich shining bits of gold 
glitter temptingly in the noonday sun. When off duty, the men 
would frequently supply themselves with tin pans and felt sacks, 
wade out to the sand bars and wash out bits of the yellow metal, 
which they immediately exchanged for commodities at the Chinese 
tokos, or stores, in the vicinity of the fort. When the stream was 
at high water, the “Chinese traders would scour the river with drag¬ 
nets for the four or five kinds of palatable fish abounding in it, 
against which the soldiers, who had to content themselves with 
ensnaring the finny tribe with the modest reel, in vain protested. 

The camp of the Javanese troops formed an addition to the fort 
on the east and was enclosed by a plain palm-log stockade. A 
short distance beyond this was a Chinese kampong, the magnet of 
attraction for the soldiers and their wives. Its area was about equal 
to that of the fort, the guns of which protected it. It contained 
some thirty houses built in the native style, of bamboo framework 
with atap roofs, and half a dozen tokos, or stores, built of teakwood 
by Chinese carpenters, and constructed with special regard to 
strength so as to exclude and offer greater resistance to any horde 
of Achinese or Battahs that might succeed in finding their way 
into the village in spite of the proximity of a military post. The 
kampong was peopled by a few Chinese army contractors, traders 
and opium dealers, a hundred Javanese and Chinese coolies who 
worked on the roads, and a score or two of chain-boys. In each 
of the four corners of the kampong there was a so-called Cossack- 
post, consisting of a rectangular platform about ten feet long and 
six feet wide and resting on teakwood-posts about ten or twelve 
feet above the ground. Each Cossack-post was guarded by one 
white and three native soldiers, who were on duty for twenty-four 


A MILITARY CHESS-BOARD. 


69 


hours at a time, from sunset to sunset. The platform is reached 
by means of a ladder which the men draw up after them and place 
on hooks fastened to the sides of the platform. The purpose of 
these posts is to protect the kampong from unwelcome guests as 
well as to keep a watchful eye on the Celestials who are ever ready 
to smuggle over to the Achinese and Battahs opium and ammuni¬ 
tion obtained from the soldiers, in exchange for gold, diamonds 
and tobacco. The Chinese shopkeepers sell anything there i£ any 
demand for, and the white soldiers frequently resort to the under¬ 
ground dens connected with some of the tokos in order to continue 
their debaucheries after they have had their fill at the canteen, 
•while their native comrades in arms go there to seek temporary 
obliviousness in the opium pipe. 

Sing Wong, the son of a Chinese father and a Javanese mother, 
was an army contractor doing a thriving business at Mandaheling 
by robbing the government as well as its servants. One day he 
sent word to the native soldiers that he would entertain them and 
their wives and children gratuitously. The natives duly came in 
the evening and were treated in the open space surrounding Sing 
Wong’s toko with cigars, cakes and sweets, while the Javanese mu¬ 
sicians under the leadership of Kromo Wonzo produced an ear- 
splitting series of discords on their musical instruments. The 
pleasing sensations produced by the consumption of articles sat¬ 
urated with opium created in the natives an appetite for more of 
the same kind and gave Sing Wong an opportunity to offer them 
for sale small boxes containing samples of the drug. It frequently 
happens that, in order to obtain the coveted article, the natives will 
not only spend their last duit, but even sell their clothing and de¬ 
liver up their children to the dark passions of the conscienceless 
Chinese. The chain-boys even will invest in opium the miserable 
pittance they receive for their convict labor in order to forget for 
the time being the wretchedness of their lot, only to be more 
forcibly reminded of it upon awakening from their stupor by the 
lashes they are certain to receive at the hands of the provost- 
marshal. 

Beneath the shade of tall waringi, palm and tamarind groves on 
the other side of the river, were nestled several kampongs of the 
Korah Battahs. Living in the immediate vicinity of a strong mili¬ 
tary post, these members of a cannibal tribe were compelled to 
observe a respectful and friendly attitude towards the masters of 
the country. Every forenoon a large contingent of men, women 
and children from the neighboring kampongs would appear on the 
highway near the fort and offer for sale the products of their gar¬ 
dens, sugar, tobacco, fruits and vegetables. The Battahs manu¬ 
facture a peculiar kind of very strong chewing tobacco, which they 
sell in the shape of long, thin coils. They carry with them small 
brass scales, into one side of which they place a plug of tobacco, 


70 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


while the purchaser is expected to put its weight in copper pence 
into the other side. 

The soldiers were distributed among the various barracks accord¬ 
ing to color and nationality. Between the officers’ quarters and the 
barracks was a large canteen, at one end of which was a stage 
utilized for amateur theatricals. The white soldiers, who formed 
nearly one-half of the garrison of Mandaheling, consisted of Dutch¬ 
men, Germans, Belgians, Austrians, Swiss, Frenchmen and sprink¬ 
lings of other European nationalities. Great Britain, however, was 
not represented. In order to relieve the monotony of garrison life 
in the wilds of Sumatra, the officers encouraged the men in the 
formation of social clubs, in which the members contributed to 
their mutual entertainment according to their ability and without 
fear of severe criticism of the artistic merits of their performances. 
The German club enjoyed the special protection of Captain van 
Leuwen, who delighted in listening to Teutonic melodies. The 
Frenchmen and Belgians piqued themselves on their rendition' of 
opera, bouffe selections and enjoyed the protection of Lieutenant 
Yerhaalen. The latter had the reputation of being a. gallomaniac. 
The Dutch club was under the protection of Captain van Houten,. 
the commander of the fort, and vainly strove to snatch the laurel 
from its rivals. The emulation among the three clubs was of a 
perfectly friendly nature, however, the objective point never lost 
sight of by them being the donation by the officers of the largest 
quantity of liquid refreshments at the close of the stage perform¬ 
ances given in turn once in a fortnight by the various clubs. 

The women, although entirely devoted to the men, whose fatigues 
they to a great extent shared, could not, however, in spite of all 
endeavors, be persuaded to pose before the footlights and delight 
the audiences with an Amboinese song or a Javanese dance. 

The German club generally acted some blood-curdling drama* 
interspersed with comic scenes and adapted for the equatorial stage 
by one Hartwig, a native of Magdeburg, who also possessed some 
skill at improvising couplets satyrizing the events of the day: On 
such days, the entire garrison, save those on guard duty, filled the 
canteen with a gay confusion of complexions, costumes, languages, 
and manners, to which the women and the children present con¬ 
tributed not a little. The offiqers and their njonjas occupied the 
seats of honor ne&t to the stage. Back of them sat at long tables 
the whites and the natives and their female companions of diverse 
hues, arrayed in their best attire and bedecked with all their 
jewelry, laughing, chattering and tittering, and emphatically ap¬ 
plauding at the close of each part, whether they had thoroughly 
understood the same or not. Between the acts the canteen re¬ 
sounded with the clinking of glasses and unrestrained hilarity. At 
the close of a performance, which generally lasted from eight 
o’clock in the evening until midnight, the officers would reward the 


A MILITARY CHESS-BOARD. 


71 


performers according to the measure in which they had been en¬ 
tertained by them by inviting them to drink as much as they liked. 
It was not an uncommon occurrence to see the actors in the morn¬ 
ing lying under the tables occupied by their audience the night 
previous. 



\ 







CHAPTER XL 


SERGEANT SDONDERWAOHT’S DANGER. 


ORTLY after the arrival of the reinforce¬ 
ments at Mandaheling a long procession of 
of Battah men and women, headed by the 
pang-ulu, or chief, of Simpanoli, a kampong 
lying between the fort and Lake Tobah, 
appeared on the scene one morning and 
asked for the tuwan besaar, or commander 
of the fort. Behind Butu, the pang-ulu, 
marched two lads who produced a frightful 
noise on soolings, instruments resembling 
clarionets. They were followed by four 
oxen gaily decorated with lemons stuck at 
the ends of their horns and with festoons of melatti flowers wound 
about their necks. Captain van Houten was apprized of the coming 
of the strange caravan and addressed the pang-ulu in Malay, the 
language universally understood by the natives as well as by the 
Mongolians and Caucasians who have resided for any length of 
time in the East Indian archipelago. 

“Whither goest thou?” the captain asked the pang-ulu. 

“I have brought you four of my finest oxen w T hich I offer you 
in exchange for the beautiful fat man standing over there,” was 
the reply of the naive Pang-Ulu Butu, who accompanied his words 
by pointing to Sergeant Slonderwacht, a member of the captain’s 
retinue. 

Some of the pang-ulu’s men, wdio had been bringing their pro¬ 
ducts to market at the fort, had for many a weary day been casting 
longing, cannibalistic glances at the portly figure of the tall, fat, 
blue-eyed and blond-haired Dutch sergeant, whom they regarded 
as the most toothsome morsel of the season when once in their 
possession and properly carved into steaks. After much delibera¬ 
tion as to how to obtain possession of that choice piece of humanity, 
the Battahs and their leading men advised the sending of a formal 
embassy to the commander of the fort and to offer the latter four 
fine oxen as the price for his sleekest and fattest sergeant. The 
savages were of the sincere opinion that the commander possessed 




SERGEANT SLONDERWACHT’S DANGER. 


73 


absolute power of life and death over his subordinates and that he 
would not hesitate to strike a bargain advantageous to his purse. 

When Sergeant Slonderwacht heard the pang-ulu’s urgent prayer 
for the exchange of his precious self for a quartette of oxen, his 
cheeks turned pale, his limbs trembled, his breath grew short and 
his eyes blurred, not because there was the slightest danger that his 
superior officer, with whom he had emptied countless flasks of gin, 
would ever lower his dignity by considering even for a moment 
such a preposterous offer, but because he knew that the Battahs, 
after they had once taken a fancy to the idea of converting him 
into a roast, would not cease their efforts to secure possession of 
his person and would resort to stealth or force at the earliest oppor¬ 
tunity to gain their object. He looked beseechingly at his captain, 
but said nothing and thought of the vast sums it cost the Dutch 
government to enlist and transport able-bodied whites from Har- 
derweyk to the Achinese frontier. 

The men and officers surrounding the captain were burning with 
eagerness to plunge upon the man-eaters and riddle them with bul¬ 
lets or transfix them with their bayonets, but the commander held 
them in check with a wave of his hand and told the pang-ulu: 
“The fat man you want belongs to the Sultan of Negri Blanda. 
I cannot give him to you. My orders are that if you ever come 
here again with a similar demand, to have every one of you shot 
on the spot.” 

In order to appease the pang-ulu, who was allowed to depart 
in peace with his men, the captain gave him several rixthalers as a 
matter of policy. The ghouls returned to their haunts in a sad 
frame of mind, while Sergeant ^Slonderwacht was transferred to 
another post in order to take a temptation away from the eyes of 
the cannibals. 

Captain van Houten, a tall, muscular Dutchman, whose body 
was compared by his men to an old fort, returned to his quarters, 
where he related the incident to his housekeeper Si-Lida, a pretty 
Javanese girl of sixteen years, whose stub nose, black eyes and 
raven tresses had gained the complete ascendancy over the Cau¬ 
casian warrior who rarely was perfectly sober. Whenever the cap¬ 
tain returned from an expedition, Si-Lida washed his clothes in the 
stream after first going through all his pockets and relieving them 
of their contents^ while her lord was sleeping off the effects of the 
gin "with which she served him. The dashing Javanese woman 
then put on her diamond rings, flaming red jacket, flowered sorong, 
gilded girdle and slippers (for in spite of the law and the presence 
of the controller she dressed as she pleased) and hastened to the 
camp of the Javanese, where she passed the time in playing at dice 
with Kromo Wonzo until the hour in which the captain had to 


74 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


receive the reports of his officers arrived. She possessed an almost 
hypnotic power over him and was not at all fastidious about the 
means she employed in waking him from his profound slumbers, 
often resorting to cuffs and blows, which he received with good 
grace as a mark of her deep affection for him. Saufhaus und a 
Javanese soldier even claimed to have seen the captain late at 
night washing Si-Lida’s clothes in the stream. 

At night a Battah spy in the service of the Dutch informed the 
controller that the pang-ulu of Simpanoli had gathered all his men 
for an attack upon an Achinese kampong some distance east of 
Indrapuri and would be absent for a week or more. The controller 
at once seized the favorable opportunity for erecting a fort at Sim¬ 
panoli, which lay on elevated ground in a densely wooded hilly dis¬ 
trict and would form an additional bulwark against the Achinese. 
Accordingly, the neighboring forts were immediately signalled to for 
reinforcements of the detachment which was to set out from Man- 
daheling early the next morning and reach the coveted spot as early 
as possible by forced marches. 

When the women and the young people, who had remained be¬ 
hind at Simpanoli while the warriors set out on an expedition 
against an Achinese village, saw a long line of Dutch troops cut¬ 
ting their way through the rembu, they gathered up whatever few 
articles of utility they possessed and wandered with their cattle 
to a more remote spot, wdiere they built a new kampong in a short 
space of time. 

As soon as the Dutch had reached the deserted village, they 
cut down the Battah houses and erected on their sites a small fort 
capable of sheltering a hundred men and the usual retinue of an 
East Indian body of troops. While the coolies were sawing a log 
of teakwood into boards to be used in framing a strong dwelling 
for Lieutenant Schwarzenberg and Njonja Augusta, the Javanese 
suddenly suspended work and told the mandoor, or overseer, that 
they had heard the wood sing, which to their minds was a mani¬ 
festation of the spirit inhabiting the log. The case was reported 
to the lieutenant, who respected their prejudices and ordered them 
to use their axes instead of their saws on the next log, in order to 
avoid “hearing'the spirits sing.” He promised the workmen, how¬ 
ever, that he would cause the singing log to be duly decorated and 
transported to their missigit in the camp at Mandaheling. 

Before the sun set behind the distant peaks of the Gleh-Rajah 
the fort was completed. The troops accompanying the artisans 
and the men destined to man the fort camped on the ground dur¬ 
ing the night. In the morning Capt. Van Houten led a recon- 
noitering expedition into the Battah country towards the northern 
shores of Lake Tobah. He was actuated by curiosity rather than 
by a sense of military duty in undertaking the excursion, which 


SERGEANT SLONDERAYACHT'S DANGER. 75 

proved to be highly interesting to him as well as to his men. After 
a few hours 5 marching under the direction of a Battah guide, a 
clearing on the top of a lofty hill was reached, and the magnificent 
panorama of Lake Tobah exposed to view. 

In the distance, thousands of feet below the ground on which 
the Dutch commander ordered a brief halt, the blue waves of a 
great Alpine lake, hemmed in on all sides by steep and forbidding 
precipices, reflected the rays of the morning sun. Dazzled by the 
sublime spectacle before him, the captain took up his field glass 
and scrutinized all portions of the matchless scene of volcanic des¬ 
olation in the midst of nature’s greatest luxuriance. The basin of 
the lake was once the crater of an immense volcano, in which, a£ter 
it had ceased to deluge the territory about it with, streams of lava, 
water gathered. The shores of the lake rose almost perpendicularly 
to the height of several thousand feet and were devoid of vegetation. 
Lake Tobah is about fifty miles long and fifteen miles wide and 
contains a large island, twenty-five miles long and ten miles wide, 

separated from the main land 
by narrow and shallow chan¬ 
nels and virtually dividing the 
lake into two distinct bodies of 
water. The northerly portion 
of the island does not project 
out of the waters of the lake 
to any great extent. It is cov¬ 
ered with an exuberant growth 
of trees and shrubs, in strange 
contrast to the naked bluish- 
tinted walls of rock guarding 
the approach to the alluring 
curls of the ever-changing sur¬ 
face of that mysterious lake. 
An air of youthfulness and vir¬ 
ginity permeates the entire 
landscape. Nature still ap¬ 
pears in her pristine garb, 
when out of desolate lava beds 
her all-powerful will first con¬ 
jured forth seas and streams 
and verdure. By a strange co¬ 
incidence, the inhabitants of 
the beautiful island of Ambarita, which rises like an emerald out of 
the azure deep, are still immersed in one of the lowest stages of hu¬ 
man development—cannibalism. The island is noted as the home 
by excellence of this atrocious custom in the land of the Battahs. 



76 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


Southward into the northern basin of Lake Tobah stretches a. pen¬ 
insula three miles long and half a mile wide. It has the shape of an 
immense hammer formed of gigantic cliffs. The wonderfully clear 
atmosphere revealed the many-tinted outlines of the verdant and 
gentle slopes of the Island of Ambarita, which was thickly studded 
with Battah kampongs from which no unprotected stranger ever de¬ 
parts alive, the steep and indented shores bounding on the eastern 
side of the lake a plateau dotted with the cones of small extinct 
volcanoes, and the changeful hues of a wind-swept lake that has 
no known outlet. After gazing for a while with mute admiration 
at the weird and grotesque scene of grandeur, the troops resumed 
their homeward march. 

At noon a brief stop was made at a native village, where the 
troops enjoyed such refreshments as the Battahs could offer. The 
captain was resting in the shade of a big tamarind tree and observ¬ 
ing Brullier’s trained monkey harvesting cocoanuts on the lofty 
palms for his men. Of a sudden a trumpet signal interrupted the 
silence of the rembu. The captain, anxious to learn the cause of 
the alarm, hastily got on his feet and ordered the nearest sergeant 
to find out what was up. The latter gathered a squad of men, who 
retraced their steps on the trail leading to* the village until they 
came across several cavalrymen searching for Trooper Wueppken, a 
native of Mecklenburg. Carefully reconnoitering the neighboring 
alang-alang fields, they finally found the lost trooper standing next 
to a pit, scratching his arms and legs and gazing about him with a 
disconsolate air. A glance was sufficient for Wueppken’s discoverers 
to realize his predicament. He had fallen somewhat behind while 
approaching the village and when seeking to catch up had rode at a 
gallop. Neither he nor his Macassar charger observed a pit, which had 
in former days probably served as a cellar for a Battah dwelling, and 
which was concealed from view by the dense vegetation, thus causing 
the animal to fall into the pit with its hind legs first so that only its 
head protruded, while Wueppken was thrown from his seat against a 
stump and slightly bruised. Wueppken exerted himself to the ut¬ 
most to extricate his horse, but failed, because the pit was deep and 
narrow. His situation, although ludicrous, was extremely unpleas¬ 
ant, for, if he returned to his squad without his horse, he would in¬ 
cur the risk of severe censure, besides having the value of the beast 
deducted from his pay. If he remained until assistance arrived, he 
ran the risk not only of being declared a deserter, but of enjoying 
the doubtful hospitality of the Battahs. Like a brave trooper, who 
was unwilling to leave to its fate the faithful steed which had car¬ 
ried him through many hundreds of miles of hill and dale, he re¬ 
solved to wait a reasonable time for succor before consulting his 
own safety. He was overjoyed at the timely approach of his com¬ 
rades, whose united efforts soon succeeded in rescuing the beast 


SERGEANT SLONDERWACHT’S DANGER. 


77 


from its open grave. When the mishap was reported to the cap¬ 
tain, the latter laughed heartily over the ludicrous position into 
which an abandoned Battah cellar had brought one of his bravest 
troopers. He cheered up Wueppken by offering him his own gin 
flask, a sure indication that no censure was in store for him. 







CHAPTER XII. 


THE BATTAH CANNIBALS. 


; •HE plateau extendiug for some distance in all 
directions from the diadem of barren rocks 
encircling the romantic waters of Lake 
Tobah is the abode of the Independent Bat¬ 
tahs, that most peculiar and interesting peo¬ 
ple, who, despite their cannibalism, have 
attained a higher mark in the scale of cul¬ 
ture than most of the neighboring tribes. 
Shut off from direct contact with the outer 
world by their geographical position in the 
midst of a mountain-encircled plateau, their 
institutions, which consider every stranger 
an enemy and an outlaw, have done the rest 
to complete their isolation. The Dutch 
government, though able to do so, has hith¬ 
erto made no systematic attempt to sup¬ 
press the practice of cannibalism on the 
Island of Ambarita and along the southern 
and western shores of Lake Tobah. Frei¬ 
herr von Brenner, an Austrian traveller, while crossing the 
island from Deli to Siboga in 1887, was so impressed with this 
fact that, in a work published seven years later, he formally called 
the attention of the Dutch government to the ease with which can¬ 
nibalism could be abolished, saying that the placing of an armed 
steam cutter on Lake Tobah would suffice to hold the anthropoph¬ 
agous natives in check. It appears that, until very recent times 
at least, the Dutch preferred to delay the necessary missionary 
labors until their railroad system, which is rapidly being extended 
throughout Sumatra, penetrated into the lands of the Independent 
Battahs. 

The history and descent of this peculiar Malay tribe is involved in 
darkness. The main pursuit of the Battahs is agriculture, the prin¬ 
cipal products being rice, maize, cotton and tobacco. They also 
raise cattle and chickens and carry on some trading with the Achi- 
nese. Their houses are built of bamboo with atap roofs and rest on 
posts with the gable side facing the road. Although frequently as 
much as one hundred feet in length, the interior of a house forms 



(78) 





THE BATTAH CANNIBALS. 


79 


but one room. In front of their houses, which are entered through 
a trap-door, are a shed and an open kitchen. The cattle are shel¬ 
tered beneath the house, which is frequently supplied with an attic 
serving as a granary. Books and other articles of value are kept in 
their meeting-house. Bamboo and earthen vessels and torches and 
lamps are their only domestic conveniences. The heads of slaugh¬ 
tered foes are suspended from the ceiling. Rivers and ravines they 
bridge with rattan cables. 

Prior to the encroachments of the Dutch upon their territory, the 
weapons of the Battahs consisted of bows and arrows and shields. 
In recent times smugglers have supplied them with firearms of 
modern construction. The Battahs dress much like the Javanese, 
but leave the upper part of the body uncovered. The women wear 
nothing but a sarong. Their ornaments consist of ivory rings, 
shells and copper wire. Gold ornaments are worn by the wealthy 
only. The teeth of both sexes are filed down about one-half at the 
age of puberty. The women manufacture earthenware and weave 
and spin on Indian looms, besides attending to all household and 
field work. 

Politically, the kampongs of the Battahs are autonomic and inde¬ 
pendent of each other. The authority of the chief is generally 
acknowledged only in times of war. In times of peace the will of 
the people, as expressed in the assemblies of the free and adult 
males, is predominant. Their chiefs, called pang-ulus, occasionally 
rule ov.er several kampongs. They acknowledge a sultan, whose 
power is merely nominal, however. The soil is common property, 
only the right to use it being inheritable and mortgageable to a 
member of the same community. Women, slaves, debtors and chil¬ 
dren have no political rights. Their system of justice is much like 
that of the Malays, with the exception that cannibalism is a legally 
acknowledged institution. This punishment is meted out to spies, 
adulterers, traitors, burglars and especially prisoners of war. The 
latter are eaten alive, after first being tied to a wooden cross with 
extended arms and legs and hacked to pieces with knives and axes. 
The bits of meat torn from the quivering limbs of their victims are 
dipped into, a mixture of salt water and lemon juice and devoured 
raw. Formerly the Battahs ate their old and sick relatives, after 
forcing them to mount a tree upon which they were shaken down and 
clubbed to death. During this performance they sang “The time 
is come, the fruit is ripe, it must come down.” They excused their 
action towards superannuated relatives by saying that they devoured 
them from pious motives, not desiring the worms in the ground to 
eat them. 

The Battahs are distinguished from the Javanese by greater open¬ 
ness, independence and manliness, which make them impatient, dis- 


80 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


obedient and prone to quarrels, although they are otherwise faith¬ 
ful, reliable, good-natured and grateful. The Battahs are free 
from the jealousy, sensuality and gullibility of the Javanese, who 
are more cowardly, vain and hard-hearted than the former. They 
are attached to tjieir place of birth and to their family, honest in 
their dealings, and by turns lazy, careless and extravagantly liberal. 
Wives are obtained in marriage by purchase from their parents, and 
may be pawned for the debts of the husband. Polygamy is allowed, 
although a Battah has seldom more than two wives. 

The Battah method of declaring war consists in fastening to a ' 
post by the wayside a cane and a human face qarved out of wood. 
They are a warlike people, the several villages frequently making war 
upon each other. Their champions, that is, those appointed to take 
lead in battle, are dressed in white. Among the Pak-Pak Battahs, 
their place is supplied by a small wooden picture painted over with 
the remnants of a decayed human head buried in the ground. The 
manufacture and consecration of one of those magic wands, the pos¬ 
session of which is supposed to give them additional power, is linked 
with ceremonies of the most atrocious character. In order that the 
wand may attain its magic attributes, the men under the leadership 
of the guru, or priest, gather about a hole dug in the ground, in 
which a boy of from nine to eleven years is so placed that only his 
head projects. In the hot glare of the sun, salt and pepper are 
stuffed into the poor victim’s mouth, causing great thirst. The 
guru then tells the boy “If you promise that your spirit will guard 
us after your death, we will give you drink.” The boy naturally 
accedes to this request in the hope of securing a drink of cooling 
water. Instead of a refreshing draught, however, melted lead is 
poured down his throat and the head of the unfortunate lad is sep¬ 
arated from the trunk and buried under a tree. Two weeks later 
the men again assemble, dig out the head and apply a portion of the 
brain matter to the upper end of the wand and to the openings rep¬ 
resenting the head and breast of the figure and seal them up .with 
wax. With the brain, they think, also the spirit of the departed 
has gone over into the wand. 

The religious beliefs of the Baittahs are very vague and uncertain. 
They believe in a supreme omnipotent being, Diebata, to whom they 
attribute an all-wise will and the powers of creation and preserva¬ 
tion. He is supposed to dwell in the seventh heaven, but after cre¬ 
ating the World is supposed to have surrendered the governing of 
the world to three other gods, Batura Guru, Sri Padi and Mangala 
Bulan. The first of these governs in heaven, is the father of men 
and has helped to form the earth, which since the beginning rested 
on the head of the horned snake Haga Padoha, but later was shaken 
off by the latter so that it sank down. The second of the three dei- 


THE BATTAH CANNIBALS. 


81 


ties rules the air and the third governs the earth. This trinity, 
otherwise known among them as the gods of justice, mercy and the 
evil principle, has in turn left the regulations of the minor details in 
the world to a host of good and evil spirits, Diebatas and Begus, of 
whom the former are supposed to live in heaven and the latter in the 
lower regions. The trinity of their godhead, as well as the etymol¬ 
ogy of their appellations indicate a Hindoo origin. The Battahs 
believe that the souls of the good go to heaven, while those of the 
evil-doers kre damned to roam about the world without rest: 

One day, while Lieutenant Schwarzenberg was standing at the 
gate of Fort Simpanoli, a Battah holding a human skull and a 
smoked hand came by. Impelled by curiosity, the officer stopped 
him and asked: 

“Whose head and hand are you carrying ? 55 

“They belong to an enemy we killed some years ago / 5 the Battah 
answered. 

“Did you eat him?” 

“Of course; what else do you think we did with him ? 55 

“Who ate him ? 55 

“Myself, my brother and his men . 55 

“How did it come to pass ? 55 

“We captured an Achinese straggler one day while he w'as trying 
to steal one of our oxen . 55 

“What was done with him ? 55 

“We bound him and took him to the chief . 55 , 

“What did the chief do with him ? 55 ? 

“He had him put into the stocks . 55 

“And then ? 55 

“Then the pang-ulu had him tied to a cross and hacked the first 
piece of meat out of his fore-arm, which he roasted slightly over a 
fire and ate with great relish . 55 

“Did the Achinese yell ? 55 

“Frightfully; but he couldn 5 t get away, for he was bound . 55 

“What was done after all had carved their fill out of the body of 
the Achinese ? 55 

“We cut off his head and hands and smoked them . 55 

“What are you carrying the head and hand about with you now 
for ? 55 

“I am taking the head to the skull-house . 55 

“Why are there §o few teeth in the skull ? 55 

“We use the teeth for the covers of ^mr sirih cases . 55 

“What is the object of that ? 55 

“When we shut the cases after taking out a quid, we have the 
same sensation as though we were striking the enemy on the 
mouth . 55 

At the close of this edifying conversation, the Battah resumed 






82 EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 

his journey, while the lieutenant walked thoughtfully to his quar¬ 
ters, where he meditated for a time on the various styles of deprav¬ 
ity current in the world. 











CHAPTER XIII. 


THE KING’S BIRTHDAY. 

E King’s birthday was celebrated at Mandahe- 
ling with the usual pomp and festivities. The 
quarters of the men and officers were gaily 
decorated with festoons and flowers. The sol¬ 
diers received extra rations and a present of 
half a guilder each. Vocal and instrumental 
music, Oriental as well as Occidental, re¬ 
sounded all day long throughout the fort and 
the camp of the Javanese. . All work except 
the necessary guard duty was abandoned to give 
way to the general merrymaking. Captain van 
Ilouten, the post commander, made speeches 
in honor of the day in all the languages he 
knew, Dutch, Malay and Javanese. He closed each harangue with 
an appeal to give three cheers for the king, which was responded to 
by the men to the echo. The Dutchmen, speculating upon an ad¬ 
ditional round of gin, placed their stout captain on a chair and 
raised him aloft, honoring him with three loud hurrahs. From 
morning until evening the canteen was packed with white soldiers 
who played at cards, drank, chatted, sang and danced to the music 
of a mighty harmonica handled by Saufhaus, a merry son' of the 
Alps, who was always ready to burst out into a “jodler.” 

The Javanese and their wives, arrayed like the rest in their b'est 
attire, gave themselves up to their favorite game of dadoo. Squat¬ 
ted in the shade of one of the barracksyvas the Javanese Sergeant 
Simin and the Dutch Private Esshuis. They were playing for large 
sums. Simin was in poor luck and had lost several hundred guil¬ 
ders. His means were exhausted and he gazed about him with dis¬ 
torted features, seeking further fuel with which to keep up the 
game. Of a sudden he seized his ten-year-old daughter, Ayam, 
placed her on one of the squares of the gambling mat, and chal¬ 
lenged the others to bid against the child. Esshuis placed one hun¬ 
dred guilders on the other side of the mat, the dice fell and the child 
became the property of Esshuis, who took her with him and placed 
her in charge of his old Javanese housekeeper, Ponki, as a new ac¬ 
cession to his household. 

In the Chinese kampong the gayety was not so universal as in the 
military camps, because during the preceding night Sing Wong, the 
most prominent shopkeeper in the place, had left for parts unknown 

(83) 



84 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


with his Battah wife and the accumulated savings of a score of Chi¬ 
nese coolies, who placed implicit faith in him. Sing Wong had 
come as a common coolie from China to Deli, where , he served a 
term of three years on a tobacco plantation. Afterwards he came 
to Mandaheling, where he toiled on the road that was being con¬ 
structed from that place to Pertibi. As is the custom of the Chi¬ 
nese coolies, they select one of their number, generally the smartest, 
to attend to their financial matters and take care of their earnings. 
Sing Wong, being a clever fellow and enjoying the confidence of 
his countrymen, was soon enabled to abandon manual labor and 
take to peddling which he carried on with considerable success 
among the vain native women in the military camps. Later he 
started a store in the Chinese settlement next to Mandaheling and 
succeeded in supplanting the army contractor, a countryman of 
his, who had amassed a small fortune at the place. Before taking 
French leave, Sing Wong, too, had acquired a snug sum, represent¬ 
ing the profits of his opj.um smuggling and of his contracts with the 
quartermaster’s department. 

In the middle of the afternoon of that day comparative silence 
reigned, for the majority of the men, gorged with a liberal repast 
and a plenitude of libations in honor of God, king and country, 
had betaken themselves to their siesta to recuperate for the evening 
pastimes, while the officers were sitting on easy chairs on the veran¬ 
das of their quarters in the company of tbueir njonjas, indulging 
in saying sweet nothings and taking an occasional sip of champagne. 
It was a typical tropical afternoon. The sun had passed its merid¬ 
ian and the heat of the day was at its greatest. A scarcely per¬ 
ceptible breeze blowing from the distant peaks of the Gleh-Bajah 
did little towards mitigating the stifling effects of the torrid atmos¬ 
phere. The river flowing past the fort appeared to have ebbed 
away before the heat and displayed countless shining sand bars, on 
which occasionally a rhinoceros-bird alighted preparatory to taking 
a bath in its murky waters. The waringi trees on the other side of 
the stream reared their giant trunks far above the leafy crests of the 
tall cocoanut palms, which in turn looked down upon the smaller 
shade trees and underbrush. An air of idyllic, soporific peaceful¬ 
ness seemed to have permeated the little world of Mandaheling, in 
which only the sentinels passing to and fro on the elevated plat¬ 
forms inside the stockade appeared mindful of the fact that “vipers 
hide ’heath the roses.” 

Through the alang-alang field lining the rembu 'which ap¬ 
proached close to the side of the fort furthest away from the stream, 
an Achinese warrior stole his way unseen towards the fort. At his 
side he carried a machette-like sword and in one hand he carried an 
ebony lance with an iron point. He wore black trousers, shaped 
like those of a zouave, and a sarong striped white and red and 
wound like a shawl about his waist. His white jacket was adorned 


THE KING’S BIRTHDAY. 


85 


with gilded buttons. A triangular trimming on both legs of Iris 
trousers revealed his rank, that of a panglima, or chief of several 
kampongs in the Achinese domain. His raven black hair fell 
down to his shoulders and was crowned by a turban hidden be¬ 
neath a tall, straw fez. The latter resembled a small, inverted 
basket without a handle. A bunch of silver keys attached to his 
slendang, a kind of sash worn about the back and shoulders, was 
an additional emblem of his dignity. He was very tall and sinewy, 
and his fiery black eyes and hawk nose indicated great courage and 
determination. 

On the platform next to the main gate a Javanese sentinel was 
dreamily pacing to and fro, without a suspicion that a foe was lying 



in ambush like a tiger waiting for a favorable opportunity to leap 
upon his prey. The Achinese had crawled through the alang- 
alang up to within a few rcfds of the sentinel and waited for a mo¬ 
ment when the latter had turned his hack towards him. The mo¬ 
ment came and the dusky warrior leaped in great bounds to the 
stockade which he sought to scale with the aid of his lance. In a 
second or two, the Achinese, using his lance as a climbing-pole, 
had his hands on the top of the fence and was about to raise up 
his body to leap upon the platform, when the sentinel turned about 
and saw the lone intruder. The sentinel was not a novice in the 
tricks of the Achinese and did not stop to ask for passwords or 
explanations, but fired his gun at the panglima without a moment’s 



86 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


hesitation. A bullet struck the latter in the knee, he reeled, slid 
back on his lance to the ground and hobbled across the road 
towards the alang-alang. The report of the gun brought the 
sergeant-major, who was resting in the guard-house close to the 
gate, to his feet. Rushing to the platform, he beheld the retreating 
figure of the Achinese and fired another shot at him. The bullet 
struck the Achinese in the side, mortally wounding him. Dropping 
his weapons, he sank to the ground with extended arms, gasping 
for breath and uttering inarticulate sounds. While this was going 
on, an alarm was given and a lieutenant with a cocked revolver in 
his hand, accompanied by a dozen men with loaded guns and fixed 
bayonets sallied out of the gate to ascertain whether any more 
Achinese were in hiding about the fort. They returned after 
assuring themselves - that the unfortunate panglima had attacked 
the fort single-handed. The latter was brought before Captain 
van Houten on a stretcher. He was writhing in agony, the wild 
rolling of his eyes accompanying the distortion of his features. 
He felt that his days were numbered and that his agonies caused 
rejoicing in the hearts of his enemies watching his last moments. 
This made him deaf to the pressing questions put to him by the 
Dutch officers who sought to learn the motives of his peculiar con¬ 
duct. “Saya jedi orang brani putul,” “I am indeed a brave man,” 
were the only words he muttered to himself while his life ebbed 
away. The Achinese chief, who had attempted to gain an entrance 
to the fort and cut down as many Dutch soldiers as possible, was, 
in the parlance of the East Indies, an “amuck-maker,” one who 
consecrates himself to certain death which he seeks to celebrate 
by killing as many others as he can reach with his weapons before 
the inevitable doom overtakes him. He lived for four hours after 
he was wounded, and was buried in the cemetery reserved for the 
chain-boys. 

The daring assault of the lone Achinese marred to some extent 
the quiet enjoyment of the balance of the day, for the officers as 
well as the men knew that an attack on a larger scale was almost 
certain to follow. Nothing occurred, however, until nine o’clock 
in the evening, when an old Achinese woman, dressed in black, 
approached the gate of the fort with a torch in one hand and a 
sealed letter in the other. She was accosted by the sentinels with 
the customary “Who goes there ?” to which she replied “Parampuan 
Atjeh,” “An Achinese woman.” The sentinels thereupon gave 
three raps on the tom-tom, or hollow segment of a tree, with which 
ever}" sentinel’s post is fitted out, which brought out the lieutenant 
and his guard who took the woman before the controller and the 
captain. The letter contained a note from Tuanku Abu, informing 
them that he would attack their fort with two hundred men that 
night. On the envelope was written with a, lead pencil: “I will 
return to-night. Preiss.” 


THE KING’S BIRTHDAY. 


87 


It is one of the customs of the Achinese to notify their enemies 
prior to attacking them, although their operations are not con¬ 
fined to the time and place indicated in their warning messages. 
Preiss was a young man of twenty-three years, a native of Luxem¬ 
bourg, wdio had enlisted from pure love of adventure and deserted 
his colors at Anak-Galooeng about a year ago and sought his fortune 
with the Achinese. The latter, however, failed to discover in him 
any elements of usefulness and treated him rather harshly, so that 
he availed himself of the earliest opportunity to escape from their 
midst and return to a Dutch post in spite of the noose certain to 
contract his neck upon his appearance. He had met the old woman 
on the way and written the line apprizing the Dutch of his intended 
return to the flag on the back of the message she bore to Manda- 
heling. 

All necessary precautions to give the enemy, in case he should 
appear, a suitable reception, were taken. Only whites were selected 
for guard duty that night and the rest instructed to hold themselves 
r&ady to fly to their allotted posts at a moment’s notice. The sky 
was cloudless and revealed the heavenly constellations in all their 
glory. With the exception of the noises made by the denizens of 
the wilderness and the sounds of the monotonous music produced by 
the natives in the adjacent kampongs, all was quiet until about 
eleven o’clock at night, when musketry fire mingled with the wild 
warhoops of the x4chinese was heard northwest of the fort. “Mad- 
joo, Blanda!” “Come on, Whites!” was the defiant battle-cry of the 
natives who fired at the fort from out of treetops and behind 
bushes and stumps of trees. The entire garrison was immediately 
called to arms and returned the Achinese fire with volleys through 
the loop-holes of the stockade. Above the din of the musketry fire 
sounded the loud boom of the big guns loaded with canister. Soon 
cries of “TandooPTandoo!” “The stretcher! the stretcher!” Were 
heard on the Achinese side, but the firing was kept up incessantly 
for several hours. Of a sudden, it ceased for a few minutes, only to 
be continued from the opposite direction, across the stream. After 
killing four soldiers, three chain-boys, a woman and a child, the 
Achinese withdrew, taking all their dead and wounded with them. 

While Mandaheling was being attacked by the Achinese under 
Tuanku Abu, the Battahs under the leadership of Pang-ulu Tibang 
were harassing Simpanoli, which was defended by fifty men under 
the command- of Lieutenant Schwarzenberg. Towards morning the 
Achinese forces retreating from Mandaheling joined the Battahs 
in their attack upon Simpanoli, but did little execution. While the 
fighting w*as going on, signals by means of' colored lanterns sus¬ 
pended from lofty poles were exchanged between the two forts, but 
each place gave the other to understand that it could hold its own. 
The enemy left the vicinity of Simpanoli shortly before daybreak. 

In the morning, Preiss, the deserter, appeared before the gates of 


88 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE JMALAYS. 

Mandaheling and was greeted by the jeers and hisses of his former 
comrades in arms. He was immediately handcuffed and brought 
into the presence of the captain and the controller. Many questions 
were put to him. Preiss told his superiors that he had been treated 
very meanly by the Achinese and preferred to die on the gallows 
among the Dutch than live longer among the fanatical followers of 
Mahomet. The valuable portion of the information secured from 
Preiss touched a hadji and a tuanku, who were stirring up the 
fanaticism and prejudices of the Achimese at Anak-Gleh and incul¬ 
cating into them the belief that on a certain day the powder of the 
Dutch at Mandaheling would be wet and that they could then take 
that stronghold by assault. 

Preiss was sick and covered with boils and his trial by court 
martial postponed for six months. At the expiration of that time, 
he was tried, found guilty of desertion and sentenced to death on 
the gallows. 



/ 








CHAPTER XIY. 


CROSS, CRESCENT, CANNIBALISM AND CANISTER. 

E black balls of the optical signal apparatus 
at Mandaheling were soon bobbing up and 
down and conveying the report of the events 
of the night and of the information ob¬ 
tained from Preiss along the signal stations 
of the intervening forts to Gleh-Kambing, 
the seat of District Commander Colonel van 
der Po'ol. The latter immediately caused 
the commander at Port Indrapuri, which 
was only a few miles distant from the large 
kampong of Anak-Gleh, where the Jiadji 
and the tuanku wfere supposed to be en¬ 
gaged in stirring up their countrymen to 
hostilities^ against the Dutch, to dispatch an 
Acliinese messenger to the chief of that village with a written order 
summoning him to appear at once before, him with the two dis¬ 
turbers. Knowing, however, that in all probability little or no at¬ 
tention would be paid to that order, the colonel took time by the 
forelock and commanded all the available troops of the nearest 
forts to march upon Anak-Gleh and capture the disturbers dead 
or alive. The colonel’s supposition proved correct, for the Achinese 
messenger soon afterward returned to Indrapuri with the informa¬ 
tion that the inhabitants of Anak-Gleh had been w'rought up to a 
high pitch of warlike enthusiasm by Tuanku Hassan and Hadji 
Mohammed Said, and that he himself barely escaped being put to 
death as a spy. When this was reported to the colonel, orders were 
immediately signalled to Indrapuri to bombard the obstinate vil¬ 
lage. As soon as the shells of the howitzers caused smoke to arise 
from the atap roofs, a long line of women and children was seen 
emerging from the kampong. The fugitives from the Dutch mis¬ 
siles drove their cattle before them and carried their most necessary 
household articles on their backs. They w^ere wending their way 
to a place of safety among the dense groves in the foothills ex¬ 
tending towards the land of the Pedirese. 

The men remaining in the village, which consisted of about fifty 
houses built in the usual Malay style and accommodating each as 
many as a dozen families, expected the coming of the Dutch at the 
loop-holes in the thorny bamboo stockade, the approach to which, 
was guarded by caltrops. The latter consisted of short pieces of 
pointed bamboo boiled, in oil and stuck cross-wise into the ground. 

(89) 



90 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THEi MALAYS. 


They were hidden from view by the tall grass and proved a great 
annoyance to the naked feet of the Javanese troops. The stockade, 
which enclosed an area of nearly thirty acres, was lined on its inner 
side with lemons, tamarinds and other fruit trees. The separate 
dwellings were surrounded chiefly by banana patches. The en¬ 
closure was encompassed by a trench which carried off the rain 
water to the near-by neglected rice-swamps. The Aehinese. never 
allow their dogs, who set up a howl at the approach of strangers at 
night, to enter their villages. The latter are also protected by a 
kind of automatic burglar alarm, consisting of a plank, one end 
of which rests on the ground, while the other is connected by 
means of rattan strings with rattles concealed in the tree-tops. The 
plank is so placed as to hide its purpose from the eyes of an in¬ 
truder. 

In the afternoon the Dutch forces closed in upon Anak-Gleh, 
which was situated a little east of the road leading from Mandahel- 
ing to Indrapuri, from opposite directions in two divisions in skir¬ 
mishing order. Colonel van der Pool approached the village from 
Indrapuri on the north w T ith half a battalion of infantry and a 
section of artillery, while Captain van Houten had orders to draw 
up his troops in the rear of the village and cut off the retreat of the 
Aehinese. When the colonel's men got within reach of the en¬ 
emy's fire, he ordered them to seek shelter behind the causeway 
while the artillery shot a breach from the roadside into the stock¬ 
ade. While the artillery was doing considerable havoc with the 
light architecture of the village and of the stockade and dense 
clouds of smoke were issuing from burning roofs, the Aehinese 
kept up a lively fire at their assailants from the north without 
knowing that Captain van Houten's division was lying in ambush 
on the other side to cut off their retreat. In the meantime, a lone 
trooper had found his way, under cover of the smoke from the 
burning kampong, to Captain van Houten and handed him a mes¬ 
sage from the colonel, notifying the former that upon a given bugle 
signal he would take the kampong by storm from the roadside. 
The message also ordered the captain to take the retreating Achi- 
nese under cross-fire. The signal having been given and answered, 
Colonel van der Pool's men stormed with loud hurrahs into the 
village. The Aehinese turned to fly and were dismayed when they 
were received by a sudden cross-fire from Captain van der Houten's 
troops. Hadji Mohammed Said and Tuanku Hassan vainly strove 
to check the retreat of their men and to rally them behind the 
stone walls of a missigit. Their favorable opportunity for flight 
was gone. Surrounded by a bodyguard of four young Aehinese 
warriors, who were intoxicated by opium, they expected the ap¬ 
proach of the enemy in the sanctuary. When Lieutenant Ver- 
haalen and his men approached the latter, the quartette of Achi- 
neses braves rushed upon them with the fury, of despair and for a 


CROSS, CRESCENT, CANNIBALISM AND CANISTER. 91 

few minutes there were some lively passes between bayonets and 
klewangs until the expert aim of Sharpshooter Saufhaus put an 
end to the struggle. While this hand to hand struggle was going 
on, the hadji and the tuanku were crouched in one corner of the 
missigit. W hen they saw their bodyguard becoming overpowered 
by superior numbers, they begged for mercy, shouting “Kassian!” 
Their prayer was granted, but they were bound hand and foot and 
conveyed to the district headquarters at Gleh-Kambing. 

All the houses which had not been destroyed by fire were razed 
to the ground after being looted. Many articles of historic inter¬ 
est were found, such as the barrel of a big brass cannon presented 
to the Achinese by one of the Georges of England, ships’ bells, 
pumps, carpets, books and many other things captured from Euro¬ 
pean vessels and lugged into the interior. 

Hadji Mohammed Said and Tuanku Hassan were brought before 
the controller at Gleh-Kambing, who identified them as very danger¬ 
ous instigators who, by means of the Koran and opium, sought to 
inflame the peaceful portion of the Achinese against the govern¬ 
ment. The controller ordered Sergeant der Weg to convey the 
prisoners, under cover of a strong military escort, to the governor’s 
headquarters at Kota-Rajah. The sergeant understood the wink 
given him by his superior and did not execute the order literally. 
While on the way, he dispatched the prisoners, who were securely 
fettered, and arrived at Kota-Rajah with their corpses. He ex¬ 
plained his action by saying that they had made an attempt to 
escape. 

After the kampong of Anak-Gleh was destroyed and the fruit 
trees cut down, the soldiers returned to their respective posts. 
While passing a small village near the wayside, a shot was heard 
and an old negro, the only full-blooded one in a half company of 
Africans, fell dead. Quick as a flash, his colored companions 
dropped their plunder and rushed upon the village with bayonets 
fixed. The infuriated troops slaughtered indiscriminately all the 
men, women and children who did not see their approach in time to 
escape. Captain van Houten ordered his bugler to call them back, 
but the blacks paid no attention to the signal, but kept on avenging 
the death of Sambo in the blood of the villagers. Two white com¬ 
panies were then sent after the maddened crowd and finally suc¬ 
ceeded, with a liberal use of the butts of their rifles, in prevailing 
upon their dark-hued comrades to leave the village and resume their 
place in the line of march. 

It was late in the evening, when the troops arrived at their 
quarters. Although thirsty, hungry, dirty and tired from the 
fatigues of the march in a broiling sun, they sang and shouted 
and gave vent to the joy of victory. The contents of the rifled 
chicken-coops of Anak-Gleh dangled from the belts of the whites. 
The Amboinese triumphantly brandished on the points of their bay- 


92 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


onets the petticoats left behind by the Achinese women. The Jav¬ 
anese had stuck their bayonets through rows of delicious durian 
fruits and filled their pockets with small tin cases containing, opium. 

While the troops were at¬ 
tacking Anak-Gleh, two Jes¬ 
uit missionaries, arrayed in 
the full garb of their order 
and riding small ponies of 
Sumatran breed, appeared be¬ 
fore Lieutenant van Baker 
who commanded at Manda- 
heling during Captain van 
Houten’s absence. They told 
him that they were making a 
trip to the Battah country to 
convert the heathen, and ex¬ 
hibited their passports which 
allowed them entire freedom 
in their movements. The 
lieutenant earnestly entreated 
them not to venture into the 
Battah country without a 
strong guard, otherwise they 
would run the most imminent 
risk of furnishing a choice 
morsel for a cannibal menu. 
However, their religious zeal 
overcame all fears for their 
own personal safety and with an “Our God will help us,” they left 
the fort, accompanied by two Malay guides with which the lieuten¬ 
ant supplied them. 

A few days later, the guides returned, nearly starved to death, 
with bruises on their hands and feet, and the traces of great hard¬ 
ships and terror impressed on their countenances, which enabled all 
who saw them hobbling towards Gie fort to anticipate their story. 
The lieutenant’s warning to the missionaries proved to have been 
only too well founded. One of the guides related the history of 
their brief and unfortunate trip as follows: 

“We reached the Battah kampong of Lutu in the evening and 
were apparently well received. The missionaries who had made 
themselves acquainted with the language of the natives before 
coming to Sumatra, sought and obtained permission to address them 
in their meeting house. The Battahs listened with respectful at¬ 
tention, but said nothing. When the missionaries finished their 
preliminary exposition of the word of God and asked shelter for the 
night, the savages fell upon them and put them in the stocks, while 
our hands and feet were tied with rattan ropes. The more cor- 






CROSS, CRESCENT, CANNIBALISM AND CANISTER. 


93 


pulent of the two priests was then tied to a wooden cross and killed 
and eaten, while his companion was locked up in a shed to be fat¬ 
tened on bananas for a day or two before being served in the same 
manner. Myself and the other guide succeeded in biting through 
our rattan fetters with our sharp teeth and making good our escape 
before daybreak, while our guards, made sleepy by their opulent 
feast, had relaxed their vigilance. Terror lent us wings, for we, too, 
would have been eaten had we stayed.” 

The occurrence was reported to headquarters and orders given 
to extirpate the cannibals of Lutu. After a. month’s delay, five 
battalions of infantry, a squadron of cavalry and two batteries of. 
field artillery were made up from the garrisons of the forts extend¬ 
ing from Kota-Rajah to Mandaheling and concentrated in a vast 
circle, the center of which was formed by the doomed kampong 
of Lutu. On account of the excite# condition of the country, 
caused by the destruction of Anak-Gleh and the machinations of 
the hadjis and of Tuanku di Tiru, one of the biggest Achinese 
chiefs, who had remained quiet for a long time but was now begin¬ 
ning to bestir himself again, it was found expedient to mass a 
large force around Lutu, to chastise which otherwise a very small 
body of troops would have been sufficient, as well as to keep the 
manoeuvres of the troops as secret as possible in order t6 not give 
the enemy any warning. Of the five battalions, only one, the Four¬ 
teenth, encountered serious difficulties on its march to the scene of 
the conflict. While cutting across the country from Anak-Galooeng, 
the battalion was misled by an Achinese guide, who was subse¬ 
quently shot dead by the major, into a swamp, where many of the 
men sank up to the armpits into the mire and were fired upon by 
the Achinese hidden in trenches and behind the bushes on the 
neighboring hills. After suffering a loss of nearly a hundred dead 
and wounded, the troops finally got out of the dangerous locality. 
Four wounded white soldiers had to be left behind, because the 
chain-bovs ordered to bring them out of the fire refused to obey. 
The chain-boys were instantly shot and the four men left to their 
doom. The next day the village chief of Sibri, a small kampong 
near Gleh-Kambing, was sent out to look for the men. He re¬ 
turned, saying, “Suda makan andjing,” “The dogs have eaten 
them.” 

While the troops were closing in upon Lutu, the Achinese, who 
had gotten wind of the movements of the Dutch, seized the oppor¬ 
tunity to fire upon the forts which had been # stripped of part of their 
men. The report of infantry and artillery fire could be heard in all 
directions. The hills were alive with Achinese, who appeared 
from thfe distance like busy ants, firing random shots towards the 
forts which answered with incessant volleys re-echoed by the lofty 
ridge of the Gleh-Rajah. The inhabitants of Lutu were not aware 
of their danger until the Dutch bayonets glittered in front of the 


94 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


stockade surrounding their kampong. The gates were open and 
through them the Second battalion charged. In a few moments 
the men were inside the enclosure, applied torches to t the sides of 
the houses, which were very long and rested on posts, and began 
the indiscriminate slaughter of all the inhabitants, old and young, 
male and female. Fifty men rushed into the house of Pang-Ulu 
Tibang, who, together with his guest, Pang-Ulu Butu, was made 
a prisoner and taken outside the kampong. The affrighted Bat- 
tahs and their wives and children set up a terrific howl of wail, 
which was mingled with the wild hurrahs and curses of the Chris¬ 
tian Amboinese and negroes and with the crackling noise of the 
flames devouring the domiciles and granaries of the inhabitants. 
A few of the savages, who were not deprived of their presence of 
mind by the sudden appearance of a merciless foe in their midst, 
seized their guns and fired, upon the Dutch soldiery, but were 
quickly brought to the ground by the rapid volleys aimed at them. 
Those of the villagers who were not transfixed by the bayonet or the 
sword or riddled yith. bullets, died in the flames devouring their 
homes, from which a dense cloud of smoke rose to the spotless 
azure. After all, human life had been extinguished in the village, 
and the fruit trees cut down, the cattle of the inhabitants was 
driven to fhe nearest military posts. A few charred acres of ground 
were all that was left of Lutu an hour after the arrival of the 
Dutch. The missionaries were avenged and the cannibals of that 
district taught a wholesome lesson. While returning to their posts, 
the officers made malicious comments on the blessings brought by 
the missionaries. 

The soldiers who had secured the two pang-ulus did not neglect 
to ransack the house for treasure and took with them the clothes 
of the missionaries and of Sing Wong, as well as the latter’s jewels 
and money-chest. Sing Wong, it will be remembered, was the 
unscrupulous storekeeper in the Chinese kampong of Mandaheling, 
who had been persuaded by his Battah wife to go with her to her 
old home under the promise that lucrative bargains there awaited 
him. Her kinsmen, however, with whom a woman is a mere chattel 
devoid of rights or of voice in momentous matters, paid no attention 
to her pleadings and feasted on her Chinese husband after securing 
his wealth. 



CHAPTER XV. 


BRULLIER’S DESERTION. 

E day following the destruction of Lutu 
was devoted by the garrison at Mandahel- 
ing to rendering the last honors to the 
dead. ' An ancient burial ground, which 
had been used by the Achinese prior to the 
days of Battah independence, and which t 
occupied a small piece of ground near the 
fort, was designated by the commanding 
officer as the last resting place of the men 
who fell in the two previous days. Among 
the volunteers selected to dig the graves 
of their fallen comrades was one Muegge, 
who, while tossing up the sod with his 
spade, came across the skeleton of an Achinese chief. The hones 
of the latter must have lain mouldering for at least a century, for 
the klewang buried with the corpse was entirely eaten through by 
rust. But neither time nor decay had had the slightest effect upon 
two rows of white and very clear diamonds which studded the hilt 
of the weapon. Throwing a rapid glance about him and finding 
his white and colored comrades absorbed in thear work, Muegge 
hastily severed the diamonds from the crumbling hilt with his 
jack-knife and secured the glittering gems about his person. Later 
he informed several of his trusty companions of the prize he had 
found. He carried the latter on his breast in a small leathern bag 
fastened to his inner clothing. 

While the bodies of a hundred fallen soldiers were lying in state 
under an improvised atap roof between the officers’ quarters and 
the canteen, and their wives, children, comrades and friends filed 
past to cast a farewell glance at their mortal remains, a touching 
incident happened. While an officer of the garrison, accompanied 
by his wife, passed by the body of Hoelscher, a tall, broad-shoul¬ 
dered, fine-looking German trooper with a flowing beard, the njon- 
ja trembled when she recognized the features of her clandestine 
lover, reeled over his teakwood coffin and impressed a passionate 
kiss on his cold lips. While straightening up, she burst into tears 
and uttered the wildest lamentations, which she accompanied by 
burying her soft, small hands into her long, black waving tresses, 
as though endeavoring to eradicate one of the chief ornaments of 
her graceful person in honor of her deceased paramour. The by- 

(95 ) 



96 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


standers were paralyzed with surprise for the moment. The officers, 
however, realized the situation at a glance. Far from betraying 
the slightest sign of distress at the unexpected revelation of her 
passion for another, he, on the contrary, gently attempted to con¬ 
sole her in the most chivalrous manner. 

In the afternoon a solemn procession, headed by Colonel van 
der Pool and his staff, marched to the music of muffled drums to 
the open graves displacing the remains of Achinese braves who in 
more remote days had waged Trojan wars against their Battah 
neighbors with wavering success. At the cemetery, the pall-bearers 
deposited their burdens into the various graves, while the latter 
'were surrounded by the soldiers‘in two rows and the officers took 
position near the center of the gathering. After brief addresses by 
Colonel van der Pool, Captain van Houten and the eldest lieuten¬ 
ant, the German chorus sang, “Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath,” 
and the post band played Beethoven’s Funeral March. The^colonel 
then addressed the Javanese and Amboinese in their own languages, 
ordered the firing of a farewell salvo by the guard of honor, sandy 
sod was cast upon the remains of the warriors, and the procession 
returned to the post to the strains of the lively Boulanger march. 
The whites, the negroes and the Amboinese were placed into one 
general grave, while the Javanese were interred separately. The 
Javanese inter their dead in a peculiar manner. A hole is dug in 
the ground and the body placed in a lateral excavation. The bam¬ 
boo of the bier is then broken into small pieces which are planted 
just outside the excavation so that the falling sods may not strike 
the body when the grave is filled. The Javanese women, while 
following the bier of their husbands, carry in their hands a small 
vase on a salver. The vase is filled with incense and from the salver 
they take copper pence steeped in rice flour and strew them along 
the wayside. They believe that the observance of this ceremony 
will insure them good luck in the future. The natives will not 
pick up pence while the marks of the rice flour are upon them. 

The faithful Ponki, the ancient Javanese housekeeper of Esshuis, 
not only religiously observed all the ceremonies of her nation in the 
obsequies of her white lord, but even sought to assure herself of the 
good graces of his departed spirit by planting a large bottle full of 
gin on his grave. Ponki, being a Mohammedan, believed that Ess¬ 
huis would display in paradise the same thirsty proclivities for 
which he was distinguished while on earth. 

The weeks following the funeral were rather uneventful and 
enlivened only by the ripple of commotion caused by the escape 
of Quartermaster-Sergeant Brullier from the guard-house and his 
desertion to the Achinese. The food served the white soldiers was 
frequently very poor, not only because the white cook and his Jav¬ 
anese assistants were extremely careless, but also because the Chinese 
army contractor supplied the post with a very inferior quality of 


BRULLIER’S DESERTION. 


97 


provisions, in order to indemnify himself for the cigars, wines and 
other articles of luxury, which he found it to his interest to furnish 
to the principal officers free of charge in order to assure himself of 
a continuance of his contracts. If it had not 'been for the Javanese 
women, who managed to furnish their masters with substitutes for 
the deficiencies of the mess with the meagre pay of the soldiers, 
these would frequently have had the choice of either going hungry 
or swallowing distasteful nourishment. It was unsafe for the men 
to wait upon their superiors with complaints, for they ran the 
imminent risk of being punished for “unfounded complaining,” or 
of being placed upon the blacklist by a red line being run 
diagonally across the report of their conduct. 

One morning a lieutenant who acted as officer of the day handed * 
the cook his key for the Storeroom and ordered him to open it for 
inspection. He found a ham missing, and threatened to report the 
cook whom he accused of the theft. The cook waited until the 
lieutenant was gone and then related the affair to Brullier who 
sent Saufhaus on an errand to the officers’ quarters. Saufhaus found 
the officers feasting on the ham which had been secretly taken from 
the storeroom and mentioned the fact to Brullier, who imme¬ 
diately reported the case to the captain. The latter, however, de¬ 
clared the testimony of the honest Swiss insufficient to overcome 
the denial of the officers and sentenced Brullier to fourteen days* 
imprisonment in the guard-house. The Austrian was deeply in¬ 
censed at his unjust treatment and resolved to desert and employ 
his military skill (he had been an officer in Europe) on the side 
of the Achinese and against the Dutch. One night he managed 
to dig a hole in the sandy soil under the plank wall of the guard¬ 
house and scale the stockade without being observed by the sentinel 
on guard, a Javanese, who was gazing half asleep at the dark foliage 
overhanging the silvery stream. His high boots protected him from 
the sharp points of the barbed wire enclosure. He had already 
gained the other side of the small open space about the fort, when 
the rustling of the alang-alang, through which he hastened his 
steps, attracted the sentinel’s attention. The latter fired his gun 
in the direction in which he saw a dark shadow disappear, the 
entire guard was alarmed and fired a series of volleys into the 
rembu, but without effect. Brullier made good his escape and his 
comrades mourned the loss of a genial and open-handed friend. 

A year after this occurrence, a tall, gaunt figure, with blanched 
and sunken cheeks and eyes seeming to start from their sockets, 
was tugging away like an infuriated tiger at the iron bars of a 
prisoner’s cell in the hospital at Kota-Rajah and muttering curses 
against the Dutch and their officers and his evil star that led him 
to enlist for the East Indies. His breast heaved with the fury 
boiling within him and with the pains caused by diseases con¬ 
tracted during his wanderings preceding his capture. It was Brul- 


98 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS, 


lier. Before his cell his former comrade in arms Schmidt paced to 
and fro with measured steps, forbidden by the stern military rules 
even to exchange a word of consolation with his friend. The sun 
sank behind the mountains and night fell over the land without 
the intervention of twilight. Schmidt had been anxiously waiting 
for the moment when the corporal of the watch went to supper. 
Resting the butt end of his gun on his foot and placing his ears 
against the bars of Brullier’s cell, the latter told him the story of 
his adventures since his desertion from Mandaheling and the fate 
that was in store for him. 

“When I reached the quarters of an Achinese band,” Brullier 
narrated, “I was brought before Tuanku di Tiru, who cross-ques¬ 
tioned me for some time on the strength of the various posts, their 
garrisons and other matters of interest to him. On the start, I was 
locked up, but otherwise treated very well. Later, my hair and 
beard were shorn off and the ceremony of circumcision performed 
on me. I was then declared to be one of them. I soon gained their 
full confidence by mounting an old gun upon a carriage and in¬ 
structing them in making shells out of the old tin cans thrown 
away by the Dutch, after having consumed the contents. There 
was a score of deserters from the Dutch ranks among the Achinese. 
Among them was a Jew by the name of Cohen who had lived 
among the Achinese since 1879. Sergeant Kolpatz, who was hung 
by the Dutch for desertion, was not a deserter at all, but a prisoner 
of war. 

“I will never forget the sad fate of a white woman, the wife of a 
sea captain commanding a British sailing vessel which lay at 
anchor before Rigas for the purpose 1 of taking aboard a cargo of 
black pepper. She told me that after the ship had been loaded, the 
cruel and daring pirate Tuanku Omar came aboard the vessel with 
twenty men armed to the teeth for the purpose of getting his pay 
for the pepper. Her husband, Captain Hansen, invited the Achi¬ 
nese to his cabin to settle his accounts with them. They had 
hardly closed tlie door behind them, when she, who was in an 
adjoining cabin, heard a terrible tumult. Entering her husband’s 
cabin, she found the captain and the mate swimming in their 
Blood. Fainting away, she did not recover consciousness until she 
found herself on an Achinese prauw moored alongside of her hus¬ 
band’s vessel. After looting the ship, the defenseless crew of which 
could offer little resistance, the pirates made for the shore and 
compelled the woman, who was ill with fever, to follow them 
barefooted over rough roads into their mountain retreats. Upon 
the pirates’ suggestion, she wrote pitiful letters to the Dutch gov¬ 
ernment, begging the latter to release her from captivity. After 
vainly seeking to capture Tuanku Omar’s kampong, which is situ¬ 
ated on a mountain ledge surrounded by swamps about a day’s 
march from Samalanga, the Dutch, after incurring a loss of several 


BRULLIER’S DESERTION. 


99 


hundred dead and wounded, were compelled to retreat and accept 
Tuanku Omar’s terms in order to avoid difficulties with John Bull. 
Upon the payment of a war indemnity and of a ransom of $100,- 
000 for the woman, she was turned over to the Dutch authorities 
at Fort Lamptiamu. She was a sorry sight, for which the outrages 
she had been subjected to at the hands of the white deserters in the 
Achinese ranks rather than the doings of the natives were re¬ 
sponsible. 

“By the way,” Brullier stopped to ask Schmidt, “what became 
of the woman after she was turned over to the Dutch?” 

“I saw her pass through Kota-Rajah in a carriage,” Schmidt 
replied in a scarcely audible whisper, “a few days ago. She was 
barefooted, wore Achinese clothing and appeared extremely worn 
out and feeble. The general supplied her with everything befitting 
her station, showed her all possible attention and placed her on 
board of a steamer bound for Europe. However, she died soon 
after the vessel cleared the port of Oleh-Leh.” 

“I cannot accuse the Achinese of having treated me shabbily,” 
Brullier continued. “They generously acknowledged my services 
as a skilled engineer, to which the many holes my shells made in 
your forts will testify, and rewarded me liberally as far as money 
is concerned. Yet I soon got utterly disgusted with them on ac¬ 
count of their crude methods of warfare, their utter lack of a 
sanitary corps, their disharmony among themselves, and my com¬ 
pulsory attendance at their missigits at the muezzin’s call. The 
Jew Cohen and myself were plentifully supplied with funds and 
one day we conceived the plan of eluding .the vigilance of the 
Achinese and escaping over the Straits of Malacca to Singapore, 
from which port we would have found no difficulty in returning to 
civilization. Accordingly, we disguised ourselves as hadjis and got 
as far as the port of Edi, where we embarked on a Dutch coasting 
vessel bound for Singapore, not, however, without having been 
previously recognized by an Achinese hadji. For the sake of the 
thousand guilders placed upon my head by the government, this 
fellow turned informer and set a Dutch cruiser in pursuit of the 
craft. You know the rest. My brother and our consul did all 
within their power to -save me out of the clutches of the court mar¬ 
tial, but in vain. I am sorry now that I attempted to quit the 
Achinese, for if I had stayed with them and succeeded in securing 
some artillery, the Dutch flag might soon have ceased to float from 
some of their palm-log forts along the G-leh-Rajah. But fate willed 
it otherwise. First, the hadjis cut my pretty Si-Wardi’s throat, 
because she l'oved me, and soon the hangman will condense mine, 
because a scapegrace lieutenant stole a ham from 'the larder at 
Mandaheling. A.dieu. Your two hours’ guard duty wall soon be 
over. Do not w r orry about me. All will soon be over.” 

By a strange coincidence, Brullier and Juro di Kromo, the Amboi- 


100 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


nese, who had run amuck at Padang-Pandjang and had been over¬ 
powered by the former before doing greater execution, were hung 
at Kota-Rajah on the same gallows on the same day. The Austrian 
waved his handkerchief while mounting the stairs leading to the 
fa.tai platform, while Juro di Kromo smoked a cigar with true 
Oriental fatalistic composure. 







CHAPTER XVI. 


TUANKU ABU’S LAST CHARGE. 



SOLDIER’S life at a Sumatran post was 
not devoid of hardships even when no 
fighting was going on. During the in¬ 
tervals in which the natives remain quiet, 
the Dutch soldiery was employed in cut¬ 
ting down the forests lining the military 
roads-leading from fort to fort, in order 
to deprive the Achinese of the sheltering 
ambush of leaves and trees. The clear¬ 
ing of the land, which is regarded with 
great disgust by the Achinese, is sup¬ 
posed to have caused, by the greater scope 
given to the exhalation of noxious mi¬ 
asma arising from decaying vegetation, the appearance of the dread¬ 
ed berri-berri, a disease which attacks natives and foreigners alike. 
Two forms of this disease are distinguished. The berri-berri bassa, 
or wet berri-berri, resembles dropsy. The berri-berri kring, or dry 
berri-berri, causes the patient to emaciate and die of heart failure. 

An attack by the Achinese was hailed almost with joy by the 
soldiers as a welcome interruption of their wearisome labors in a 
murderous climate. The younger soldiers grumbled at their cease¬ 
less struggles with the red ants which infest the foliage and creep 
upon them when the trees are felled. The bites of these ants 
produce small red spots on the skin and cause a torturing pain. 
The older soldiers were discontented when no shooting was going 
on, because they then had no opportunity of returning to the 
government the empty copper cartridges for which they received a 
pittance sufficient for an extra gin. 

The destruction of Anak-Gleh and of Lutu, which occurred 
about the middle of the year 1884, was followed by a season of 
comparative peace in the vicinity of Mandaheling. During this 
period, Tuanku Abu, one of the most intrepid of the Achinese 
leaders, recruited among the Pedirese, the darkest-hued, strongest, 
bravest and fiercest of all the Achinese tribes, a devoted and fanat¬ 
ical band of chosen followers whom the hadjis had inculcated with 
the belief that on a certain day the powder of the Dutch at Manda¬ 
heling would be wet. By catering to their superstitions and by 
liberal donations of opium, Tuanku Abu had worked up his fol- 


( iox ) 



102 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


lowers into a kind of frenzy in which anything appeared possible 
to them. An inkling of what was brewing in his camp was con¬ 
veyed to the Dutch by the daring raid made by eight Achinese, 
intoxicated with opium, early one morning shortly before Christ¬ 
mas in the year 1885.' 

While the reveille was being sounded at five o’clock and the 
corporal of the guard was unlocking the gate of the Javanese camp 
to let in the chain-boys to sweep out the barracks, eight Achinese, 


men of Herculean frame, 
suddenly leaped upon him 
in the darkness and dis¬ 
patched him with their 
lances and klewangs. Dur¬ 
ing the night they had 
managed to creep up un¬ 
seen to the fort and keep 
in hiding in the barbed 
wire enclosure, patiently 
-waiting for the moment 
when the gate would be 
opened and they could 



rush upon and mow down a portion of the unsuspecting garrison. 
The corporal died without being able to utter a warning sound, 
but a bugler on guard, who saw the savages rush through the gate, 
quickly seized Ins instrument and blew an alarm. The Achinese 
in the meantime did not waste a moment, but leaped with a bound 
into the Javanese barracks to the left of the gate. The barrack was 
occupied by about two hundred men, women and children, who had 
just been awakened by the reveille and were rubbing the sleep out 
of their eyes. The eight intruders killed every man, woman and 
child that got within reach of their klewangs w T hich they handled 
with lightning-like rapidity. The affrighted inmates of the bar¬ 
rack, who succeeded in eluding the blows of the furious Achinese, 
made for the open and shouted at the top of their voices: “Orang 
Atjeh massok!” "The Achinese have broken in!” The alarm 
sounded by the bugler and the cries of help issuing from the Jav¬ 
anese barrack put the entire garrison on their feet in a few mo¬ 
ments. Soon squads of soldiers with fixed bayonets entered the 
scene of the execution from both sides and fell upon the Achinese 
madmen. It was a critical moment, for if any of the soldiers had 
fired at the Achinese, they would have run the greatest risk of 
hitting their own comrades. For some minutes the barrack re¬ 
sounded with the clashing of klewang, lance and bayonet. The 
Achinese, driven to bay, defended themselves with desperate valor 
and great skill in one corner, but were rapidly laid low by the supe¬ 
rior numbers of the Dutch, of whom a score perished in the struggle. 




TUANKU ABU’S LAST CHARGE. 


103 


The commander of the fort surmised that the amuck of the eight 
Aehinese was the precursor of an assault on a larger scale. To 
prevent the repetition of ail unpleasant surprise, white soldiers 
were exclusively placed on guard duty and instructed to keep a 
sharp lookout. Nothing to create suspicion, however, was observed 
for several days until one bright morning, shortly after the sun 
had risen over the foot-hills to the east, a sentry on the northeast 
bastion saw a large troop of howling Aehinese approaching towards 
the fort from a clearing in the neighborhood. The sound of the 
sentry’s gong immediately called to the spot the officers who gazed, 
at the foe through their field glasses and ordered their men to get 
ready for action. 

The Aehinese advanced rather slowly until they emerged into 
the smooth road connecting Mandaheling with Simpanoli, when 
they started upon a pell-mell assault upon the fort. With their 
thundering war-whoop “Huh Allah! Huh Allah!” and brandishing 
scaling ladders and wreaths of combustible material steeped in tar, 
some five hundred opium-inspired Aehinese braves rushed towards 
the stockade, through the loopholes in which several hundred Dutch 
bayonets glared threateningly upon the rash assaulters. Captain 
van Houten had given strict orders to his men not to fire until 
ordered to do so. The men obeyed even when the burning pitch 
wreaths hurled by the strong arms of the sinewy natives began to 
fly over their heads and ignite the light atap roofs of their quarters. 
The captain saw the fingers of his men pressing nervously against 
the triggers of their rifles and continued to shout: “Don’t shoot! 
Wait until they get within fifty paces!” Tuanku Abu himself, 
armed with a lance and a klewang, and dressed in white, the color 
of the garbs worn by the so-called orang brani, or champions, who 
are pledged to lead the van, rushed on at the head of his men, who 
were encouraged by the* mock clicking of the Dutch guns in their be¬ 
lief in what thehadjishad told them would happen on that day,name¬ 
ly, that the powder of the Dutch would be wet and that then the lat¬ 
ter would become easy victims to Aehinese* dexterity with lance and 
klewang. When the front line of the dark-hued warriors had 
advanced to within fifty paces of the fort, Captain van Houten 
thundered out, “Fire!” Above the infantry fire from three hun¬ 
dred rifles was heard the thunder of the howitzers which aimed 
their metal hail into the midst of the daring foe. When the cloud 
of smoke from the first volley disappeared, Tuanku Abu and scores 
of his followers were seen writhing in the dust. The others, how¬ 
ever, pressed on with unabated vigor to the very gates of the fort, 
against which they attempted to place their scaling ladders. Even 
where an Aehinese had succeeded'in mounting to the top of the 
stockade, he was quickly transfixed or shot by the soldiers placed 
on the sentry platform running along the inner side of the en- 


104 EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 

closure. The defenders fired volley after volley into the ranks of 
the assaulters, which were rapidly thinned, thus demonstrating to 
the befuddled minds of the savages the futility of their undertak¬ 
ing. After a very short time the Achinese started to fly.' The 
green-turbaned hadjis, who led the attack, were the first to attempt 
to make good their retreat, but were brought to the ground by the 
unerring aim of Saufhaus and other sharpshooters. 

The result of the brief engagement was a veritable carnage among 
the followers of Tuanku Abu, while the Dutch troops remained 
entirely unharmed. A few parting shots were sent after the flying 
remnants of the Achinese, after which the Dutch proceeded to 
cart away the corpses—there were no wounded and no prisoners, 
because no quarter was given or asked—and bury them in a large 
pit filled with quicklime. In the afternoon an Achinese, woman 
appeared with a flag of truce and asked for the delivery of the dead. 
This request'was not granted. The following morning, however, 
the Achinese mass grave was adorned by scores of little white cot¬ 
ton flags stuck into the ground. 

The abortive and suicidal attempt of Tuanku Abu and his fol¬ 
lowers upon Mandaheling was the last conflict of any magnitude 
in the ceaseless guerilla warfare carried on between the Dutch and 
the Achinese to the present day. 

Every now and then a brief dispatch from Hong Kong announces 
some outrage perpetrated by Achinese pirates upon the defenseless 
crew of some vessel. At longer intervals of time, a still briefer 
dispatch from Batavia reports that the Dutch colonial troops made 
a successful attack upon some Achinese village. The warfare car¬ 
ried on by the Dutch against the natives may be compared to some 
extent to the Indian wars in American history, and will be ter¬ 
minated by the same great civilizing agency—the railroads. 

The members of the transport which left Batavia with the 
Soorakarta in April, 1884, were frequently transferred from one 
fort to the other in Northern Sumatra. Out of a company of 
seventy-five Germans who enlisted at Harderweyk, only fourteen 
lived to return to their native land or to the shore of an adopted 
country at the close of their term of six years’ service. The great 
majority were either killed in the frequent skirmishes or succumbed 
to the diseases, of that deadly climate. The survivors of that com¬ 
pany, who almost without exception seized the first opportunity to - 
hasten to more salubrious shores, carried with them the conviction 
that they had seen the tropics in all their glory, directly under the 
equator, in the vicinity of' lofty mountain rapges and of one of 
the most beautiful of inland lakes, and in daily intercourse with a 
pirate and a cannibal nation. Their hardships were many and 
their delights few. Whether enthusiast or adventurer, the only 
consolation of a mercenary under the Dutch flag in the East Indies 


TUANKU ABU’S LAST CHARGE. 


105 



is the love of his Javanese mate and housekeeper—the magnet of 
attraction for Europeans in those regions. 

The history of Saridin, a native soldier, who rose to the rank 
of a lieutenant, may, perhaps, form the most fitting conclusion of 
these Reminiscences of Sumatra. 





CHAPTER XVII. 

SARIDIN, A JAVANESE LIEUTENANT. 

1. A SON OF THE DESSA. 

ERGEANT Saridin’s comrades in the 
Dutch colonial army regarded him as an 
ideal subaltern officer. The mere men¬ 
tion of his name was sufficient to silence 
the most persistent detractor of the na¬ 
tive soldiery and refute the assertion that 
the Javanese were wholly unfit, for war¬ 
like pursuits. 

“Yes, Saridin is an exception,” was a 
remark frequently, heard in the barracks 
of Java and Sumatra. But Saridin was 
not merely an exception: he was a model. 
His carriage, his deportment, his man¬ 
ners, exerted a powerful influence on the 
native soldiers under his command, and their deeds reflected to some 
degree the genius of their leader. 

Although Saridin was rather short of stature, his faultless mil¬ 
itary bearing made him appear taller than he really was. Even 
when off duty, he invariably walked with head erect, and observed 
the utmost precision in all his movements. His long jet black 
hair betrayed the daily application of fresh kalapa. oil, and even 
his unpretentious moustache exhibited evidences of careful groom¬ 
ing. His apparel was very simple 1 , but neat, and included shoes, 
although this requisite of civilized man was never allowed the Jav¬ 
anese natives except by special permission from the Colonial gov¬ 
ernment. His gait alone revealed to an attentive observer a tinge of 
awkwardness, because the well-shaped feet of the Javanese pro¬ 
test against encasement of any description. He possessed the talent 
of lending military air to the performance of the simplest duties. 
When approaching the officer of the day, he would bring his reso¬ 
lute gait to an abrupt stop when the regulation interval of three 
paces had been reached, touch his cap with his right hand and 
make the customary report “as pesen,” “all is well,” with the mien 
of a man communicating state secrets of the highest importance. 

Otherwise, Saridin was looked upon merely as a native soldier 
unworthy of further notice, although many a young officer involun¬ 
tarily lowered his eyes, before the penetrating glance of the brown 
sergeant. And yet scarcely ten rain monsoons had swept across the 

( 106) 




SARI DIN. A JAVANESE LIEUTENANT. 


107 


ever green, spice-laden jungles and the extinct volcanoes of the 
Pearl of the East Indies since he was a child riding naked from his 
native village to the adjoining dessa (rice-field) bn the back of his 
favorite steer that joined his fellow-toilers in a delicious and cool¬ 
ing mud-bath in the irrigating streams descending from the neigh¬ 
boring hills and mountains. Great, indeed, was the gulf between 
the boy, who lived almost like his steer, and Sergeant Saridin. 

When Saridin had arrived at the age of fifteen years, he was 
compelled, at the request of traveling Europeans, generally Dutch 
soldiers, upon the village chief for carriers of their luggage between 
stations on the highway leading from Samarang on the northern 
coast of the island to Ambarawa in the interior, to perform a por¬ 
ter’s work for the modest remuneratiQu of two duits (equivalent to 
about one cent) for each mile made with a load. No allowance 
was made for return trips without a load. 

On his first trips to Ambarawa the insufficient pay was a matter 
of little consequence to him. He forgot his most pressing needs 
in gazing with mute amazement at the many strange sights crowd¬ 
ing upon him during his-compulsory journeys—the first aspect of 
Occidental civilization and its accessories, stone house's built-close to 
each other, Europeans walking about like ordinary inhabitants of 
the dessa, without a following and without the pajong (umbrella, 
badge of distinction), and stores filled with a bewildering array of 
objects, the uses of which were a mystery to him. In whatever 
direction he turned his head, his eyes fell upon spacious and 
tempting warongs (eating houses) and his imagination would soar 
from its oriental stupor to alluring phantasies of prandial delights. 
In such predicaments, the ill-paid and half-fed youth did the wisest 
thing under the circumstances: tighten the belt around his waist 
and accept an invitation to a frugal repast from a comrade who still 
had a few duits to spare. 

After repeated visits to seats of European culture, habit dulled 
his senses to their charms, and he frequently had occasion to medi¬ 
tate on the constant void in his exchequer. He realized the fact 
that he was virtually becoming poorer every day he transported 
freight on his back at the current rates of pay. 

One day a tuwan, or gentleman, gave him, to his great aston¬ 
ishment, a handful of duits for merely removing some parcels from 
one side of a street to the other. Saridin had previously pawned 
his last sound sarong for fifty duits to the hostess of a warong and 
sought to acquire the twenty duits still lacking him for the redemp¬ 
tion of the garment by fortunate throws at dice., but luck went 
against him and he lost not only all his coin, but alas his badjoo, 
upper garment. 

Hungry, disgusted and fatigued, Saridin sought the shade of a 
waringi tree near a warong in the immediate vicinity of the bar¬ 
racks of Samarang. The fragments of an old sarong constituted his 



108 EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 

entire habiliment, almost too scant for even that unconventional 
clime. The only other chattel he owned, his pickolan, carrying 
stick, lay beside him. After a brief rest, he was forced to relinquish 
the shaded bench to make room for some soldiers who had come 
along. The burning sun of the tropics blazed down upon him with 
unmitigated intensity and the only shaded spot in sight was the 
roofed veranda of the warong. 

Saridin was sick from hunger and extremely miserable. Almost 
within reach of his arm, the soldiers were enjoying a splendid repast 
of say j or (rice and cream), pisang .gorang (fried bananas) and many 
varieties of sweet and aromatic fruits. 

He lingered near the soldiers and his thoughts occasionally flew 
back to his native dessa. He thought of his ancestral bamboo hut 


resting on posts, of the surrounding palm, tamarind and waringi 
groves, of his favorite steer and especially of his beloved Sarina, 
a daughter of the village chief, who had been his playmate when a 
child and whom he expected to take under his own roof as soon as 
he could call one his own. 

While Siaridin’s mind was rumbling between the dessa and the 
festive board, a pisang leaf, which had served one of the soldiers as 
a plate, fell to the ground. A few grains of rice still clung to the 
leaf, and Saridin could not resist the temptation of picking it up 
and greedily devouring the sparse vestiges of a feast. 

‘'Key and jin,” "Like a dog!” said one of the men, with an accent 
of profound contempt. 

“Lapar!” "I am hungry!” was Sari din’s humble apology. 


SARIDIN, A JAVANESE LIEUTENANT. 


109 


“Hungry ancf no money! Then why do you not become a sol¬ 
dier?” was the rejoinder of one of the men. 

The prospect of a military career had never entered Saridin’s 
mind when he was musing on the wretchedness of his condition. 
Like most of his countrymen he bestowed very little thought upon 
the future. It is true, occasional reflexion had taught him that 
it was more delightful to saunter about beneath a gilded umbrella 
and ride a spirited steed and have a sufficiency of rice at every meal 
than to he compelled to carry burdens for the orang blandas, as the 
natives of the Malay archipelago call their white masters. But the 
thought of attempting to improve or change his condition had 
never entered his mind. 

“Are the soldiers ever forced to carry burdens?” he asked in a 
timid manner. 

“No, never.” 

“Never!” he reiterated, as if doubting either the testimony of his 
ears or the veracity of the men. 

“Never, and yet they always receive plenty of rice and money. 
Who furnishes them with all these things?” he questioned further. 

“The government,” was the laconic reply of the blue-coats. , 

“And what services must the soldiers perform in return?” 

“Guard duty, drilling and fighting the enemy. It is an honor to 
be a soldier,” the men informed him, not without an exhibition of 
pride in their calling and their superiority over the untutored lad 
from the dessa. 

Saridin stared at the ground and pondered. He knew that as 
soon as he enlisted in the Dutch army, his black hair, which was 
gathered up in a queue, would be cut off, and began to doubt 
whether Sarina would continue to lavish her affections upon him 
after the camp barber’s scissors had done their work, and relieved 
him of what every true Javanese takes great pride in—his long hair. 

The tight embrace of his belt gradually ceased to suppress the 
rebellious murmurings of his stomach, and the sight of the sol¬ 
diers munching the delicious aromatic darian fruit finally overcame 
his lethargy. 

The soldiers saw his waning resistance to a change in his avoca¬ 
tion and one of them told him: 

“If you wish to become a soldier, you can‘eat as much rice as 
you please at my expense and pay me back when you receive your 
bounty. From what dessa do you hail?” 

“From Dessa Klumpang.” 

“How old are you?” 

“The cocoa-nut palm which my father planted in front of our 
hut at my birth has borne fruit for the last twelve monsoons,” 
Saridin informed the voluntary recruiting officer who now became 
anxious to enlist him on account of the twelve guilders “blood 
money” which he was entitled to in case of success. The lad had 


110 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


told him in his poetic vernacular that he was of military age, and 
there being no flaw apparent in his make-up, the men felt sure of 
their prize. 

“What is your name?” was the final question put to him. 

“Saridin.” 

“Now, then, Saridin, sit down and eat. When you have had 
.your fill, we will take you with us to tfie sergeant-major.” 

During this conversation Saridin sat squatted on the ground 
Javanese fashion, that is 'balancing the body on the toes with the 
lower extremities describing a zigzag. The invitation to dine on 
rice and other delicacies overcame whatever repugnance to a miltary 
career may still have lain dormant within him.. He arose, took a 
seat on the 'bench occupied by the men and pitched'into the eatables 
with the voracity of a starved out dessa dog. The cravings of 
hunger satisfied, he followed the soldiers to the barracks. 

2. AMONG THE MERCENARIES. 

Saridin entertained but very vague ideas of the meaning of the 
various ceremonies of which he was the central figure, preceding his 
enrollment into a company of native infantry. He was led from one 
officer to the other and none allowed him to squat on the floor, 
as is the custom of the natives in civic life when addressing a supe¬ 
rior. The first officer he was presented to placed him against a post 
and appeared to be satisfied with his height. Another subjected 
him to a thorough physical examination, as though he was an ani¬ 
mal on sale. A third wrote a few lines which were handed his 
conductor. 

At night Saridin was given a good supper and assigned a mat 
on which to sleep. Twice the drumbeat interrupted his slumbers 
which the reveille put an end to altogether for the first day of his 
new course of life. 

In the morning the young recruit was taken before the resident 
who asked him the name of his dessa. The balance of the day he 
was employed in working about the house of the sergeant-major and 
enjoyed the unaccustomed plenty of dried meat and cream. 

The resident’s certificate, authorizing Saridin’s enrollment, was 
received the following day by the sergeant-major who at once 
ordered a native sergeant to appear before him with the new re¬ 
cruit. The sergeant-major then read in Dutch v the articles of 
war to the sergeant who translated them into Javanese for the bene¬ 
fit of Saridin. After every sentence the sergeant asked the pros¬ 
pective defender of the Dutch prestige in the Malay archipelago 
“Mengarti?” “Did you understand?” 

“Ingeh,” “Yes,” was Saridin’s invariable reply, although, in 
truth, he comprehended very little of what was read to him except 
a confusing gibberish about shooting, hanging and dishonorable 
discharge (key bangs at jang trada hormatnja), for the noise of the 


SARIDIN, A JAVANESE LIEUTENANT. 


Ill 


soldiers drilling on the grounds and the incessant beating of drums 
made an understanding of what was said very difficult. 

At last the sergeant-major handed Sari din a pen and told him 
to sign his name to a document. When Saridin informed him that 
he could not write, the officer modified his order and suggested that 
he draw chicken feet (kaki-ajam) by way of making his mark in 
place of his signature. Saridin, who understood still less, if possible, 
of drawing than he did of writing, looked with perplexity upon the 
hand which was expected to imprint a similitude of the pedal ex¬ 
tremities of a chanticleer on paper, until the native sergeant grew 
impatient, laid his hand upon ,Saridin’s and told him to hold fast 
to the pen. In a moment the bottom of the sheet was covered with 
a series of irregular ellipses unthought of by Euclid, and Saridin 
became a full-fledged soldier. The sergeant hastily resumed his 
arms and rejoined his comrades at drill. 

Another tuwan, the fourir, then took charge of Saridin and led 
him to the magazine to receive his accoutrements. Saridin was 
there fitted out with an abundance of clothing such as he had never 
even dreamed of possessing and the necessity of which he could 
not understand. After carrying to his bunk a supply of trousers, 
shirts, caps, sarongs, neckcloths, copper buttons, and other things, 
a native comrade assisted him in arraying him in his new clothes, 
after first cutting off the beautiful long hair of which Saridin was 
very proud. An hour later Saridin was completely equipped for his 
new role and jingled fifteen guilders bounty in his pocket. 

The vast island empire of the Dutch in the East Indies embraces 
Java, Sumatra, Celebes, a portion of Borneo, the Moluccas and a 
number of smaller islahds, which are inhabited by representatives of 
nearly all Malay tribes. The Dutch Colonial army, which is scat¬ 
tered in small detachments over all portions of the Malay archipel¬ 
ago, is composed principally of Javanese and Amboinese, the white 
soldiery, which is drawn from nearly all countries of the world, 
forming about one-third of it. From among the Malays proper of 
Menang-Kebo on Sumatra only a few companies are levied, as this 
people enjoys a fair degree of wealth and is therefore not so easily 
induced to adopt the military profession. 

The principal recruiting stations on Java are Batavia, Meester 
Cornelis, Buitenzorg, Samarang, Soorabaya and Willem I.; and on 
Sumatra, Fort de Kock and Padang-Pandjang. Chartered steamers 
are at all times ready to convey troops and munitions to and 
from all parts of the empire. 

Saridin’s company was one of the many assigned for duty to 
Northern Sumatra. In the ceaseless skirmishes with the crafty 
' natives, men of large and powerful frames, thoroughly conversant 
with the territory and adepts in all the arts of guerrilla warfare, 
Saridin soon found opportunities to distinguish himself by' superior 
dexterity and valor, and rose by degrees to the rank of sergeant. On 


112 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


one occasion, he left his captain behind him in scaling a breastwork, 
and on another he shot down a foe who had leveled his kris at his 
commanding officer. These, deeds earned for him the bronze medal 
for courage and fidelity. 

At another time the command of a post was temporarily given to 
a European non-commissioned officer of SaridiiTs company. A 
band of hostile natives, unexpectedly^ appeared on the' scene, sur¬ 
rounded the post and cut off all its means of communication with 
the outside world. The garrison, consisting of twenty-five men, 
repulsed several assaults, but their commander fell, seven men were 
disabled and Saridin limped with a bullet wound in his leg. This 
did not, however, deter him, who' was next in command, from as¬ 
suming charge of the defense and issuing his orders with laconic 
brevity as though nothing had happened. 

The enemy, not desiring to take- their chances on a third assault, 
contented themselves with beleaguering the fort and attempting to 
starve the garrison, whose rations, in consequence, were gradually 
reduced until they amounted to nothing. 

Saridin suppressed The discontented murmurs of his men. by 
threatening with instant death anyone who spoke of surrender, and 
he was known to keep his word. A soldier who attempted to desert 
was discovered by Saridin and instantly dispatched. After several 
days and nights fraught with the greatest hardships caused by total 
lack of food and constant annoyance by the enemy, Saridin an¬ 
nounced to his men that an hour before sunrise on the following 
day thdy should cut their way in close order through the scattered 
lines of the savages and make for ^a neighboring- post, while he 
would remain at the post with the sick and wounded and expect the 
foe in the powder magazine with a torch in his hand. The men, 
however, refused to abandon their disabled comrades and their gal¬ 
lant leader behind them and seek doubtful safety in flight, and 
voluntarily promised to hold out another day. Before they were 
driven to the last extreme, a detachment of troops came to their 
rescue, routed the savages and raised the siege. 

Saridin received the silver medal for bravery and a sword of honor 
from the governor-general, his name was mentioned with praise in 
the orders of the day and his conduct applauded. 

Yet were his rise in stations and the distinctions bestowed upon 
him adequate to his merits and sufficient to satisfy his ambition? 
Did they increase his zeal to serve a government which considered 
a few empty honors and his modest pay sufficient reward for his 
services? Only Sarina, his wife, kneV of his incipient discontent. 

3. SARINA. 

In accordance with the custom requiring every decent Javanese 
to take unto himself a wife, Saridin had, when still a mere private, 
chosen the playmate of his boyhood, Sarina, to share his camp life. 


SARI DIN, A JAVANESE LIEUTENANT. 


113 


Her complexion was a shade lighter than his own,—among the 
coffee-hued natives great stress in laid on the faintest approximation 
to a Caucasian teint—her dark brown, lustrous eyes had an intelli¬ 
gent look and harmonized with her long and coarse jet black hair., 
As the wives of the native soldiers share the quarters of their liege 
lords in the barracks and frequently do considerable execution 
among themselves with their tongues while their stronger halves 
are pursuing the natives of Acheen into the recesses of the Gleh- 
Kajah, Saridin made it a point to pistil Sarina with his own keen 
love of order. Whenever he returned from drill or guard duty, he 
could shake off fatigue at leisure with a cool bath in an adjoining 
stream and seek repose on his couch with the full assurance that 
upon awakening after an hour’s lapse, his arms and accoutrements 
would lay beside him, properly arranged and able to bear the closest 
scrutiny. In the earlier part of their joint career, Sarina earned at 
least the rations of a soldier by washing the garments of the Euro¬ 
pean subaltern officers of the company and by the baking of kwe^- 
kwe, a kind of sweet pastry which is much relished by the natives. 

Saridin’s promotion gave her the title of Nhahi Serriant—Mrs. 
Sergeant—and her husband insisted upon her letting other women 
do the cooking and baiting for her and upon confining herself to the 
labors of superintendence. 

Saridin’s influence with the members of his company enhanced 
that of Sarina with the feminine contingent of the camp. She set¬ 
tled to their satisfaction all the little disputes constantly arising 
among the dusky ladies of the garrison. In serious affairs, where 
jealousy or infidelity was the leading passion, Saridin was generally 
called to arbitrate, and it rarely occurred that his decision was 
not accepted as final and the officer of the day appealed to. 

Whenever the company was in the field, Sarina was intrusted 
with the charge of the quarters, peopled in such events solely by 
women and children, to the great disgust of the sergeant-major’s 
wife. The latter’s remonstrations to the commander, however, were 
in vain, because her conduct was not considered a standard even 
in that easy going community. Every morning Sarina would then 
inspect the quarters with the serious air of a general. Whenever 
the adjutant announced his arrival, it was a pleasure to enter the 
well-kept apartments. Sarina, neatly dressed, would receive the 
officer at the door with a broom as a badge of her dignity in her 
bands and salute him with a respectful “as pesen”—all is well— 
and then cry out in a loud voice “Odeh!” “To order!” On such 
occasions Safina’s realm presented a festive but odd appearance, 
for no matter how fiercely the morning sun glared through the 
open windows, a burning lamp graced every table. The native 
women stood each at her proper couch, anxious lest curiosity tempt 
their children to poke their brown, close-shaven heads through the 


114 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


curtains surrounding the couches and mar the solemnity of the 
ceremony. 

4. BROWN AND BLACK. 

Saridin was no longer a coolie, a mere human beast of burden. 
He had learned to think, to observe and to compare, and the rudi¬ 
ments of knowledge acquired in the service further stimulated his 
inquiries. He had meditated for a long time on the distinctions 
made in the treatment of European and Asiatic soldiers and had 
almost contented himself with the conclusion that the difference 
in color alone was responsible for the better pay and more bountiful 
rations accorded his white comrades. 

It could not be denied, he admitted, that the Javanese were a 
stupid and foolish people in comparison with the Europeans, but 
v his countrymen would not remain so forever, and many old native 
soldiers performed their duties even better than their white 
brethren. The natives received smaller rations than the whites. 
Why? Was it because the Javanese coolie was too poorly paid 
to eat meat daily? Was it because all European soldiers were ac¬ 
customed to good fare prior to their enlistment? The Javanese, 
too, were fond of meat which made their bodies stronger and 
more impervious to hardships. But why did the whites receive 
better pay than the natives? Did not both serve the same king 
and the same country? Did not both wear the same cockade and 
the same uniform? Was the punishment in store for delinquents 
not alike? Ought the reward, too, then, not be commensurate 
with the punishment? Were the Javanese less exposed to the 
enemy’s fire? Did not lances and klewangs pierce brown skin as 
readily as white? Why was the King William decoration presented 
to Sergeant Viermann, who had distinguished himself less than 
he, and not to him? Did he, Saridin, get drunk twice a week, 
beat his wife, or ever suffer chastisement at the hands of the pro¬ 
vost-marshal? And yet, when Viermann passed the watch, every 
man rose and saluted and arms were presented as before an officer. 
But nobody was obliged to do honor to Saridin, although he wore 
the silver medal for courage and fidelity on his breast and the 
klewang of honor at his side. Why this discrimination? Such 
were the thoughts which sowed the seeds of discontent ip his 
heart and intensified the feeling of stifled ambition and undeserved 
neglect. 

If Saridin had known the widely diverging sentiments and opin¬ 
ions of his Dutch masters concerning the treatment that ought to 
be given their brown-skinned subjects in the East Indies, he would 
have borne his fate with resignation, if not with satisfaction. 

In the far away Holland the voice of compassion and humanity 
spoke in no uncertain tones through isolated prophets who were 


SARIDIN, A JAVANESE LIEUTENANT. 


115 


intimately acquainted with the colonies and demonstrated the ca¬ 
pacity of the Javanese to rise to a higher plane of civilization if 
they were given an opportunity for free development. 

They denounced the laws degrading a great nation to mere 
beasts of burden and robbing them systematically of the fruits 
of their toil. They pointedi out the injurious, effects of semi-slavery 
upon the character and progress of the natives of Java after they 
had become accustomed to regular work, and predicted that con¬ 
tinued oppression would bear bitter fruits in the end. They argued 
that the time had come to make a nobler use of the power obtained 
by the conquest of a peaceful people, and prophesied that the Jav¬ 
anese, once raised from the dust, would be their natural allies and 
contribute more to Holland’s greatness in a condition of freedom 
than of subjection. 

Saridin knew nothing of all this. As a coolie he had felt the 
yoke; as a soldier, he experienced the unjust discrimination of 
the conquerer. Occasionally the love of liberty for himself and 
his country kindled in him thoughts of rebellion against the rule of 
unsympathetic foreigners. If another Dipo Negoro should arise, 
he thought . . . But no, Saridin was too loyal for this. Had 

he not with his own hand, at the expiration of his first term of 
service, signed his name in Dutch to the promise to serve the 
government for another period? Come what might, under no cir¬ 
cumstances would he turn traitor. 

After a successful expedition against a Sumatran tribe, Saridin’s 
battalion was stationed at Kedong-Kebo, where it was joined by a 
battery of artillery and another battalion of inf anitry, one company of 
which consisted of negroes and half-breeds. The encampment pre¬ 
sented a motley array of races and tribes, each of whom spoke a lan¬ 
guage of their own. The barracks of theEuropeans stood next to that 
of the natives from the Island of Madura. Beyond these were the 
quarters of the Javanese, Amboinese and negroes. During the - 
heated portion of the day, from ten in the forenoon until four 
in the afternoon, when the soldiers were required to remain in¬ 
doors on account of the intense heat, the camp resounded with a 
medley of songs. One could hear the abrupt, guttural bellowing 
of the blacks, the squeaking voices of the Madurese, the soporific 
ditties of the Javanese and popular airs in all European tongues. 

All these troops were distinguished from each other not only 
by their language and complexion, but also by the treatment they 
received. Saridin was puzzled to learn what line of demarcation 
had been drawn to divide the various sets of warriors into categories 
of preferment. 

A new captain had been assigned to Saridin’s company. At 
the very first inspection he asked Saridin how he came to wear 
shoes. Before the latter could reply, he was ordered back to the 
barracks to take off his footgear. The captain clung to the letter of 



116 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


the general law forbidding the natives to wear anything whatever 
on their feet 

Saridin had thrice obtained permission to wear shoes, a license 
regularly canceled by each new company commander and not 
renewed until after much petitioning on the part of Saridin. 

One evening he stood guard in company with Kidjekru, a coal 
black negro from southern Africa. The negro wore shoes on his 
big, ungainly feet, while Saridin was barefooted. Darkness had 
settled on the valleys and obscured even the nearest mountain 
peaks. The kalongs, or flying foxes, a kind of large bat, cut 
through the air with their big wings. Armies of mosquitoes and 
fireflies filled the air with buzzing and humming noises and specks 
of light. The sounds of revelry from a nearby kampong, where 
a wedding was celebrated, ceased towards midnight. Only a forlorn 
swain, stretched out at full length on the ground before his hut, 
and gazing indifferently at the silvery stars, continued to accom¬ 
pany the weird music of the jungle world with a melancholy ditty 
in praise of the virtues of his loved one. 

“Are there any kalongs in your country?” Saridin asked Kid- 
jekru. 

“I do not know,” the black replied. 

“Do you recollect the place of your birth?” 

“Yes, indeed.” 

“What is its name?” 

“This I. do not know.” 

Saridin paused a moment and then began to catechise Kidjekru 
afresh. 

“Do the people of your country wear sarongs?” he began. 

“No, they run about naked.” 

“Does your country resemble Java?” 

“No.” 

“Is it flat or mountainous?” 

“The mountains there are so high that if I should gaze at the 
ton, my cap would fall from my head.” 

Saridin thought that the peaks of Africa must indeed be very 
lofty, foi he had never lost his cap when gazing at the tops of his 
native volcanoes. 

“Is it true that men are butchered in your country?” Saridin 
continued his inquiry. The African' displayed his flawless white 
teeth with a grin and said: 

“Certainly, at feasts, to drink their blood.” 

Saridin observed the eyes of the African sparkle with savage 
desire, but remained unmoved by the recital of the atrocities prac¬ 
ticed on the dark continent, for he had frequently heard the same 
story from the mouths of his negro comrades. He returned to his 
pet topic and asked Kidjekru: 

“What induced you to enter the Dutch service?” 


SARIDIN, A JAVANESE LIEUTENANT. 117 

“I do not know.” 

“Yon do not know?” Saridin exclaimed. 

“No.” 

“Was your father a soldifer?” 

“I do not remember my father. I was fourteen years old and 
herding cattle, when men with three incisions on their forehead 
came,—men with other names than ours. The people of our tribe 
have all two incisions on their foreheads, here, one, two.” 

When he said “here,” the negro pointed out the deep scars on 
his cheeks deforming his face, which in their day served to desig¬ 
nate the tribe to which he belonged. 

“And then?” Saridin asked. 

“The men of the other tribe unexpectedly attacked our village. 
Usually our tribe was the stronger, but this time they were taken 
by surprise, and our men were killed and their blood was drunk. 
I was made a prisoner together with many others and had to> march 
westward all day for three years.” 

The negro gradually raised his voice while he was relating the 
history of his youth until Saridin reminded him that they were 
on guard duty. 

“We finally reached the sea at Elmina,,” the negro continued. 
“The men of the other tribe received clothes and rum, much rum, 
and the men of our tribe went into the fort, while the others re¬ 
turned the way they came. I received clothes for my body and 
shoes for my feet, and could not run, only walk very slowly, so.” 

Here the negro imitated the dragging motion of an African 
suddenly compelled to perambulate in shoes. 

“And then?” Saridin continued. 

“Then a ship came and we went, with it.” 

“Far away?” 

“Yes, far away, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred days.” 

“To arms!” cried the sentry. The appearance of the captain 
of the watch interrupted the conversation and when the inspection 
was over, Kidjekru retired to his bunk to snore. 

“These, then,” Saridin reflected, “are the people put on the same 
footing with Europeans in Java, who wear shoes and receive better 
rations than the Javanese soldiers. The Javanese do not drink 
human blood, nor run about naked like the negroes in their native 
land. The Javanese have some ideas of morality and human dig¬ 
nity. W r hy was a Black Dutchman accorded more privileges than 
the Javanese? Because he is not at home here? Incomprehen¬ 
sible.” 

Saridin was ill ait ease. The Christian Amboinese, he consid¬ 
ered, a people of the same race and color as himself, also ranked 
higher than the Javanese. But a reason, however conflicting with 
the religious liberty proclaimed by the Dutch, could be found for 
this preference. The Amboinese/ he thought, were early converts 


118 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


to Christianity, and on this account they were put on the same 
footing with Europeans. But the Africans were no Christians 
when they became soldiers. They were sold as slaves in their own 
country and still were respected more than the inhabitant of a 
Javanese kampong who entered the service of his own accord. And 
besides the skin of an African was much darker than that of a 
Javanese. No, color could not be the measure employed by the 
whites in judging a man’s worth. 

But Saridin was bent upon dispelling the perplexities that tor¬ 
mented him. 

“If I should turn Christian/’ he thought, “if I were to abjure 
the worship of Allah, of what use were it? The whites do not 
favor the Amboinese because the latter are Christians, but because 
they are bom on Amboina., while Javanese converts remain the 
meanest of soldiers. Accursed be the fate which made me a Java¬ 
nese!” 

Saridin did not know that accident alone was responsible for 
the advantages of the Amboinese over the Javanese. In early days, 
when Amboina w#s the main stronghold of the Dutch East India 
company, the missionaries received all possible assistance from the 
government in their work of inducing the Mohammedan Amboinese 
to substitute the Bible for the Koran. All converts were supplied 
with the means of subsistence and permitted to wear European 
garbs, which meant entire personal liberty. According to tradition, 
the natives of Amboina were seized with such a sudden and strong 
desire to adopt the creed of the Nazarene that they flocked to the 
mission in large droves. As a separate baptismal rite for each pro¬ 
spective dark-hued Christian would have involved many inconven¬ 
iences, entire crowds were baptized at once time 1 , the hand fire en¬ 
gines of the settlement being called out to perform the necessary 
drenching. 

The Amboinese enjoy to this day the privileges secured by a 
timely conversion to Christianity. A Javanese soldier, after an 
honorable sendee of six years in the Dutch army, wished to re¬ 
enlist and fancied in his innocence that he was entitled to do so as 
an Amboinese. He was told that this was impossible, that once 
a Javanese always a Javanese. He resented this stepmotherly 
treatment anc}. returned to his kampong, the government losing the- 
services of a faithful, skillful and half-civilized man. 


5. THE MUTINY. 


The scream of a night bird interrupted Saridin’s meditations. 
He listened attentively and when the scream was repeated he got 
up and walked to the other side of the sentry box. His sharp eyes 


SARIDIN, A JAVANESE LIEUTENANT. 


119 


„ recognized the figure of a woman seated at the base of a tjemara 
tree. Cautiously approaching her, he asked: 

“Is there anything new yonder, Sarina?” 

“There is.” v 

k *I was right, then. Speak!” 

“No one sleeps in the quarters of the Black Hollanders!” 

“Allah!” 

“Many voices are heard speaking at the same time, the Black 
Hollanders cannot talk in a low tone.” 

“You have heard everything, then, Sarina?” 

“Not everything, because they arc talking in their native tongue.. 
When the muskets were taken from the shelves—” 

“The muskets? I)o I hear correctly?” 

“You do, Saridin. When the muskets were taken from the 
shelves, Njahi Boliassi said to her husband, ‘Do n„ot load, Bohassi!’ 
but the latter thundered back: ‘Silence, woman! the captain must 
die!’ ” 

“And Kidjekru?” Saridin asked somewhat anxiously. 

“Kidjekru is not one of the party.” 

“I thought so.” 

“Njahi Kidjekru,” Sarina continued, “was ordered to call her 
husband from the watch, but refused. When Boliassi attempted 
to beat her, she drew her cape knife and defied him, saying: ‘Try 
and beat me!’ Then many voices cried: ‘Don’t beat her, sergeant! 
What’s the difference?’ and others said: ‘Njahi Kidjekru is brave!’ ” 

“Mark my words well, Sarina,” he told her. “Hasten to the 
captain’s house, have him get up and tell him that the Black Hol¬ 
landers are making amuck. Then wake up all the Javanese and 
bid them arm themselves.” 

Sarina did as she was told and Saridin hastened to the guard¬ 
house, where he secured the ammunition chest. Cautiously wakipg 
his Javanese comrades in the guard-house, he beckoned them to 
seize their arms as noiselessly as possible and follow him. 

Near the barracks of the Africans several dark figures are seen 
hovering about. The door to their quarters is blocked with men. 

“Who’s there?” Saridin shouted to the nearest figure. 

A wild yell was all the answer he received. 

“Who’s there?” he repeated, approaching the mutineers on a run. 

All the negroes save one retreated upon recognizing the fearless 
Saridin. Boliassi, the principal ringleader, alone held his ground, 
aimed his gun at him and fired. Saridin heard the bullet whistling 
'past his ear and commanded his men to fire. Seven shots rang 
simultaneously through the still night air and the Javanese re¬ 
loaded their guns and advanced. 

Boliassi was found swimming in his blood. His comrades had 
dispersed, some seeking refuge in the barracks., and others taking to 
the woods. ■ 


120 


EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE MALAYS. 


Saridin and his men reached the barracks almost as soon as the * 
rebellious negroes and closed the door upon them. At every mo¬ 
ment other Javanese soldiers, alarmed by Sarina, rushed to Saridin’s 
assistance, and the negroes were completely surrounded by troops 
before the officers appeared on the scene. A general alarm was 
immediately given and called the entire garrison under arms. The 
African company surrendered and all save thirty-seven men were 
accounted for. These had sought refuge in the neighboring bushes 
and did not surrender until ten of their number had fallen after a 
desperate resistance. 

Saridin, whose energetic action had suppressed the mutiny in 
the bud, was rewarded by promotion to the rank of second lieuten¬ 
ant and transferred to another battalion. 

A commissioned officer’s epaulets now graced his shoulders, an 
orange sash encircled his slender body, and neat shoes hid his small, 
well-shaped feet. The officers pressed his hand and wished him a 
happy journey. A servant approached with a saddle horse/ and 
Saridin started to overtake Sarina who had preceded him on the 
journey to Weltevreden, the sphere of his new activity. 

6. DISENCHANTMENT. 

As an officer Saridin fared worse than formerly. He felt to their 
fullest extent the disadvantages of having been born a Javanese. 
The charm attached to his rise in rank vanished in a few brief 
years with the gloss of his epaulets. He discovered that the govern¬ 
ment treated the native officer even more stepmotherly than the 
native soldier. Compelled to live and dress according to his rank, 
his pay and allowances were only one-half of those of his white 
colleagues. Except for occasional visits to the Officers’ club, he had 
to content himself with living like an ordinary Javanese. 

He spent his idle hours in the company of Sarina on the rear 
veranda of his bamboo dwelling. He had risen far above his 
original station, but found himself barred from all intercourse with 
his equals. It is true, another native lieutenant resided in Weltev¬ 
reden, but he was a semi-idiot from old age and childishness. In¬ 
tercourse with native dignitaries was out of the question, because 
they would not have considered him, the parvenu, their equal, and, 
even if they had condescended to accept his company, he would 
have been unable to entertain them in a manner suitable to their 
rank. 

As a subaltern officer, Saridin had felt far happier, for he was 
tihen at least respected to' a certain degree. As an officer, he was al¬ 
most a cipher, lie lacked the technical knowledge required for spe¬ 
cial commissions and was not deemed worthy, on account of his na¬ 
tionality, of service at headquarters. These bitter experiences threw 


SARIDIN, A JAVANESE LIEUTENANT. 


121 


Saridin into a profound melancholy. By degrees he lost the elas¬ 
ticity of mind which had characterized him in former years. 

lie saw the European lieutenants advance, while his life was 
becoming hopelessly monotonous. 

Saridin became more and more of a recluse with misanthropical 
feelings embittering the contemplation of his lot. In one of his 
abject moods, he broke his sword of honor and threw out of the 
window his medals, the testimonials of his valor and fidelity. 
Finally, after an uneventful sojourn of six years in Weltevreden, 
he was transferred to Soorabaya, where a continuance of the same 
cheerless and monotonous life awaited him. 

Silently a steamer ploughed its way through the smooth and 
phosphorescent waters of the Java Sea. The Southern Cross shone 
with all its brilliancy in the southwestern part of the heavens. The 
air was balmy with the spicy odors waited across from the ever¬ 
green isles. The night was far advanced and all was quiet on the 
deck of the vessel. Sarina slept peacefully in her cabin. Saridin 
sat close to the rail on the backboard and stared upon the shining 
sea. His whole past life flitted through his imagination. An in¬ 
tense melancholy seized him. The vanity and barrenness of all 
the heroic efforts of his earlier days crushed his spirit, his will 
power ebbed away and his devoted Sarina was for the moment for¬ 
gotten. His mind reeled and his body inclined more and more 
to the outside of the rail. The phosphorescent sea appeared to 
his dimmed eyes like the reflexion of a better world. He lost 
his balance, the watch pacing the quarter-deck heard a splash, and 
Saridin sank unobserved beneath the placid and discreet surface 
of the deep. 

The next morning several passengers stood with moist eyes be¬ 
fore the cabin of an unhappy woman, who tore her garments, con¬ 
torted her body and mourned the loss of her husband with the 
wildest expressions of inconsolable grief. 




































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